another lamp and now the place was
discernible in a dull yellow glow. In the corner lay a half-burned wisp
of paper. Nan herself stood by the mound on the bed, putting straight
the quilts that her patient had twisted awry.

"She sho am bad, Doctor," said the colored woman, with big eyes.

Seen in the light, Dr. Jallup was a little sandy-bearded man with a
round, simple face, oddly overlaid with that inscrutability carefully
cultivated by country doctors. With professional cheeriness, he
approached the mound of bedclothes.

"A little under the weather, Aunt Ca'line?" He slipped his fingers
alongside her throat to test her temperature, at the same time drawing a
thermometer from his waistcoat pocket.

The old negress stirred, and looked up out of sick eyes.

"Doctor," she gasped, "I sho got a misery heah." She indicated her
stomach.

"How do you feel?" he asked hopefully.

The woman panted, then whispered:

"Lak a knife was a-cuttin' an' a-tearin' out my innards." She rested,
then added, "Not so bad now; feels mo' lak somp'n's tearin' in de nex'
room."

"Like something tearing in the next room?" repeated Jallup, emptily.

"Yes, suh," she whispered. "I jes can feel hit--away off, lak."

The doctor attempted to take her temperature, but the thermometer in her
mouth immediately nauseated her, so he slipped the instrument under her
arm.

Old Caroline groaned at the slightest exertion, then, as she tossed her
black head, she caught a glimpse of old Captain Renfrew.

She halted abruptly in her restlessness, stared at the old gentleman,
wet her dry lips with a queer brown-furred tongue.

"Is dat you, Mars' Milt?" she gasped in feeble astonishment. A moment
later she guessed the truth. "I s'pose you had to bring de doctor. 'Fo'
Gawd, Mars' Milt--" She lay staring, with the covers rising and falling
as she gasped for breath. Her feverish eyes shifted back and forth
between the grim old gentleman and the tall, broad-shouldered brown man
at the foot of her bed. She drew a baggy black arm from under the cover.

"Da' 's Peter, Mars' Milt," she pointed. "Da' 's Peter, my son. He--he
use' to be my son 'fo' he went off to school; but sence he come home, he
been a-laughin' at me." Tears came to her eyes; she panted for a moment,
then added: "Yeah, he done marked his mammy down fuh a nigger, Mars'
Milt. Whut I thought wuz gwine be sweet lays bitter in my mouf." She
worked her thick lips as if the rank taste of her sickne