h, she is so fond of colours. She is always asking for a pink or a
blue or a white story. She wants everything in the story tinged with
whatever colour she chooses,--dresses, parasols, flowers, sky, even the
icing on the cakes and the paper on the walls."

"What an odd little thing she is!" exclaimed Mrs. Tyler. "Isn't she lots
of company for you?"

She need not have asked that question if she could have seen them that
evening, sitting together in the early twilight.

Lloyd was in her mother's lap, leaning her head against her shoulder
as they rocked slowly back and forth on the dark porch.

There was an occasional rattle of wheels along the road, a twitter of
sleepy birds, a distant croaking of frogs.

Mom Beck's voice floated in from the kitchen, where she was stepping
briskly around.

"Oh, the clouds hang heavy, an' it's gwine to rain.
Fa'well, my dyin' friends,"

she sang.

Lloyd put her arms closer around her mother's neck.

"Let's talk about Papa Jack," she said. "What you 'pose he's doin' now,
'way out West?"

Elizabeth, feeling like a tired, homesick child herself, held her close,
and was comforted as she listened to the sweet little voice talking
about the absent father.

The moon came up after awhile, and streamed in through the vines of
the porch. The hazel eyes slowly closed as Elizabeth began to hum an
old-time negro lullaby.

"Wondah if she'll run away to-morrow," whispered Mom Beck, as she came
out to carry her in the house.

"Who'd evah think now, lookin' at her pretty, innocent face, that she
could be so naughty? Bless her little soul!"

The kind old black face was laid lovingly a moment against the fair,
soft cheek of the Little Colonel. Then she lifted her in her strong
arms, and carried her gently away to bed.

CHAPTER V.

Summer lingers long among the Kentucky hills. Each passing day seemed
fairer than the last to the Little Colonel, who had never before known
anything of country life.

Roses climbed up and almost hid the small white cottage. Red birds
sang in the woodbine. Squirrels chattered in the beeches. She was
out-of-doors all day long.

Sometimes she spent hours watching the ants carry away the sugar she
sprinkled for them. Sometimes she caught flies for an old spider that
had his den under the porch steps. "He is an ogah" (ogre), she explained
to Fritz. "He's bewitched me so's I have to kill whole families of flies
for him to eat."

She was always busy