en
comically distorted, they were easily recognizable. She was executing
these works of art on a wax tablet with a copper stylus, and the others
were to guess for whom they were meant.

One girl only sat by herself by the furthest post of the shed, and gazed
silently into her lap.

Paula looked on and could understand everything that was going forward,
though no coherent sentence was uttered and there was nothing to be
heard but laughter--loud, hearty, irresistible mirth. When a girl threw
the shoe far enough the youthful crowd laughed with all their might,
each one shouting the name of some one who was to marry her successful
companion; if the shoe fell within the line they laughed even louder
than before, and called out the names of all the oldest and dirtiest
slaves. A dusky Syrian had failed to hit the mark, but she boldly seized
the chalk and drew a fresh line between herself and the shoe so that
it lay beyond, at any rate; and their merriment reached a climax when a
number of them rushed up to wipe out the new line, a saucy, crisp-haired
Nubian tossed the shoe in the air and caught it again, while the rest
could not cease for delight in such a good joke and cried every name
they could think of as that of the lover for whom their companion had so
boldly seized a spoke in Fortune's wheel.

Some spirit of mirth seemed to have taken up his quarters in the
draughty shed; the group round the sketcher was not less noisy than the
other. If a likeness was recognized they were all triumphant, if not
they cried the names of this or that one for whom it might be intended.
A storm of applause greeted a successful caricature of the severest of
the overseers. All who saw it held their sides for laughing, and great
was the uproar when one of the girls snatched away the tablet and the
rest fell upon her to scuffle for it.

Paula had watched all this at first with distant amazement, shaking
her head. How could they find so much pleasure in such folly, in such
senseless amusements? When she was but a little child even she, of
course, could laugh at nothing, and these grown-up girls, in their
ignorance and the narrow limitations of their minds, were they not one
and all children still? The walls of the governor's house enclosed their
world, they never looked beyond the present moment--just like children;
and so, like children, they could laugh.

"Fate," thought she, "at this moment indemnifies them for the misfortune
of their b