ad.

"After all, Stell," she said, "one hundred dollars won't go a great
way."

"Well, of course, Lil, we don't expect to launch out, like Dinah, in
'gorgeous array.'"

"No, but we don't want to look like Southern paupers."

"As we are," said I, laughing.

"No matter: we must put the best foot foremost," said Lil, looking very
pretty and pale and earnest as the salt wind blew back her hair: "our
new silks, with some of Aunt Nanny's old lace, will do very well, but
how I wish we had some jewelry!"

"Oh, I don't care for that," said I.

"Good enough reason: you are younger than I am, and don't need it." (One
would have thought Lilly thirty years old.) "But I should look like a
different being with earrings. I must have a pair."

"The only question is how to get them," said I prosaically, for I'm
always acting as a drag on Lilly's wheels.

"True," she said with a tragic air. "Dear me! I'm tempted to duck my
head under the water, and let it stay there, when I think of all the
troubles of life."

"'You would be a mermaid fair,
Sitting alone, sitting alone,'

and all strung round with corals and pearls. But I'd rather be Stella
Tresvant on her way to New Orleans--and breakfast."

"Breakfast, indeed!" said Lilly with an accent of scorn.

Still, she ate this meal with a becoming appetite, and after it was
ended proposed that we should go and have a chat with Maum' Hepsey.

We found Maum' Hepsey in her cabin, sitting in a rickety old
rocking-chair, a short black pipe in her mouth from which she was
drawing vigorous whiffs of comfort. A slow fire was burning in the
fireplace, and on it was a huge black kettle half filled with white
Southern corn. This was "lye hominy" in course of preparation--the
succulent lye hominy dear to every Southern heart.

"Lor', chillen!" said Maum' Hepsey, "it's too hot for you to be in here.
Massy knows if I wazn't seasoned to it I'd drap in my tracks, dis fire
is so pow'ful drawin'."

"Oh, never mind, maum'; we can sit in the door. We just came to talk to
you about our troubles."

"Sakes alive! I thought your troubles waz about over, now dat you're
gwine ter have a trip to Orleans."

"That's it," sighed Lil: "we're going off to that grand city, where I
suppose the ladies wear silks and satins every day, and we've nothing to
wear."

"Whar's de money for de cotton?" Maum' Hepsey demanded, her lower jaw
dropping in such a surprised way that the black pipe fell out a