back."

Mom Beck, busy with her extra baking, supposed she was with her mother
on the shady, vine-covered porch.

She would not have been singing quite so gaily if she could have seen
half a mile up the road.

The Little Colonel was sitting in the weeds by the railroad track,
deliberately taking off her shoes and stockings.

"Just like a little niggah," she said, delightedly, as she stretched out
her bare feet. "Mom Beck says I ought to know bettah. But it does feel
so good!"

No telling how long she might have sat there enjoying the forbidden
pleasure of dragging her rosy toes through the warm dust, if she had not
heard a horse's hoof-beats coming rapidly along.

"Fritz, it's gran'fathah," she whispered, in alarm, recognizing the
erect figure of the rider in its spotless suit of white duck.

"Sh! lie down in the weeds, quick! Lie down, I say!" They both made
themselves as flat as possible, and lay there panting with the exertion
of keeping still.

Presently the Little Colonel raised her head cautiously.

"Oh, he's gone down that lane!" she exclaimed. "Now you can get up."
After a moment's deliberation she asked, "Fritz, would you rathah have
some 'trawberries an' be tied up fo' runnin' away, or not be tied up and
not have any of those nice tas'en 'trawberries?"

CHAPTER III.

Two hours later, Colonel Lloyd, riding down the avenue under the
locusts, was surprised by a novel sight on his stately front steps.

Three little darkies and a big flop-eared hound were crouched on the
bottom step, looking up at the Little Colonel, who sat just above them.

She was industriously stirring something in an old rusty pan with a big,
battered spoon.

"Now, May Lilly," she ordered, speaking to the largest and blackest of
the group, "you run an' find some nice 'mooth pebbles to put in for
raisins. Henry Clay, you go get me some moah sand. This is 'most too
wet."

"Here, you little pickaninnies!" roared the Colonel, as he recognized
the cook's children. "What did I tell you about playing around here,
tracking dirt all over my premises? You just chase back to the cabin
where you belong!"

The sudden call startled Lloyd so that she dropped the pan, and the
great mud pie turned upside down on the white steps.

"Well, you're a pretty sight!" said the Colonel, as he glanced with
disgust from her soiled dress and muddy hands to her bare feet.

He had been in a bad humour all morning. The sight of the steps covere