njured party, prudently confined herself to the mail. As we have only
one servant's room and that directly under my sleeping-porch, it made it
very pleasant! The choicest telegram J---- took down late one night. It
was from one of Mandy's neighbors, and ended with the illuminating
statement: "George never had a gun or a knife on him; he was soused at
the time!" Mandy emerged from bed, clad in a red kimono and a pink
boudoir cap, to receive this comforting message. She wept; Essie, who
had followed in order to miss nothing, scowled, while J---- and I wound
our bath-robes tightly about us and gritted our teeth, in an effort to
preserve a proper solemnity. Of course we had to let her go back to the
trial, which she did with the dignity of one engaged in affairs of
state. She and the judge had a kind of mother's meeting about George,
and decided that a touch of the law might be just the steadying
influence he needed.

The sentence was for three months, which suited me exactly, as I
calculated that his release and our return to town would happily
synchronize. Mandy really stood the gaff pretty well and returned to her
job, and an armed neutrality ensued, varied by mild outbreaks. Essie was
afraid of Mandy. She said that she would never stay in the house with
her alone; Mandy wouldn't stay in the house alone after dark, so it
became rather complicated. We apparently had to take them or else find
them weeping on the hillside, when we came back from a picnic. In
justice to the darky heart I must say that when Billie was taken very
ill they buried the hatchet for the time, and helped us all to pull
him through.

The summer was almost over when I began to suffer from a strange
hallucination. I kept seeing a colored gentleman slipping around corners
when I approached. As Mandy was usually near said corner, I certainly
thought of George, but calmed myself with the reflection that he was
safe in jail. Not so. George had experienced a change of heart and had
behaved in so exemplary a manner that his sentence had been shortened
two weeks, and what more natural than that he should join his wife? It
wasn't that I was afraid of George; I was afraid for George. I did not
want him to meet Essie, for if Grandma's smile had cost him so dearly, I
hated to think of the effect of Essie's black eyes and unbroken set of
white teeth. I needn't have worried, for George was apparently "sick of
lies and women," and never let go his hold on the apron