ing answer.

"Like me!" fairly gasped the Colonel. "How are you like me?"

"Oh, I'm got such a vile tempah, an' I stamps my foot when I gets mad,
an' gets all red in the face. An' I hollahs at folks, an' looks jus' zis
way."

She drew her face down and puckered her lips into such a sullen pout
that it looked as if a thunder-storm had passed over it. The next
instant she smiled up at him serenely. The Colonel laughed. "What makes
you think I am like that?" he said. "You never saw me before."

"Yes, I have too," she persisted. "You's a-hangin' in a gold frame over
ou' mantel."

Just then a clear, high voice was heard calling out in the road.

The child started up in alarm. "Oh, deah," she exclaimed in dismay, at
sight of the stains on her white dress, where she had been kneeling on
the fruit, "that's Mom Beck. Now I'll be tied up, and maybe put to bed
for runnin' away again. But the berries is mighty nice," she added,
politely. "Good mawnin', suh. Fritz, we mus' be goin' now."

The voice was coming nearer.

"I'll walk down to the gate with you," said the Colonel, anxious to
learn something more about his little guest. "Oh, you'd bettah not,
suh!" she cried in alarm. "Mom Beck doesn't like you a bit. She just
hates you! She's goin' to give you a piece of her mind the next time she
sees you. I heard her tell Aunt Nervy so."

There was as much real distress in the child's voice as if she were
telling him of a promised flogging.

"Lloyd! Aw, Lloy-eed!" the call came again.

A neat-looking coloured woman glanced in at the gate as she was passing
by, and then stood still in amazement. She had often found her little
charge playing along the roadside or hiding behind trees, but she had
never before known her to pass through any one's gate.

As the name came floating down to him through the clear air, a change
came over the Colonel's stern face. He stooped over the child. His hand
trembled as he put it under her soft chin and raised her eyes to his.

"Lloyd, Lloyd!" he repeated, in a puzzled way. "Can it be possible?
There certainly is a wonderful resemblance. You have my little Tom's
hair, and only my baby Elizabeth ever had such hazel eyes."

He caught her up in his one arm, and strode on to the gate, where the
coloured woman stood.

"Why, Becky, is that you?" he cried, recognizing an old, trusted servant
who had lived at Locust in his wife's lifetime.

Her only answer was a sullen nod.

"Whose child is this