tairs.

"Miss Nannie gib Marse Tom Boling her han' an' look up in his face like
a queen, an' den she kissed Marse Henry, an' whispered somethin' in his
ear dat nobody didn't hear, only de tears gin to jump out an' roll down
his cheeks, an' den she looked de mist'ess full in de face, an' 'thout
a word dropped her a low curtsey.

"I come de las'. She looked at me for a minute wid her eyes
a-swimmin', an' den she th'owed her arms roun' my neck an' hugged an'
kissed me, an' den I see an arm slip 'roun' her wais' an' lif her in de
coach. Den de horses 'gin a plunge an' dey was off.

"An' arter dat dey had five years--de happiest years dem two ever seen.
I know, 'cause Marse Henry gin me to her, an' I lived wid 'em day in
an' day out till dat baby come, an' den--"

Aunt Chloe stopped and reached out her hand as if to steady herself.
The tears were streaming down her cheeks.

Then she advanced a step, fixed her eyes on the portrait, and in a
voice broken with emotion, said:--

"Honey, chile,--honey, chile,--is you tired a-waitin' for yo' ole
mammy? Keep a-watchin', honey--keep a-watchin'--It won't be long now
'fore I come. Keep a-watchin'."

BY THE WATERS OF PARADISE

By F. MARION CRAWFORD

Copyright 1894 by G. P. Putnam's Sons.

I

I remember my childhood very distinctly. I do not think that the fact
argues a good memory, for I have never been clever at learning words by
heart, in prose or rhyme; so that I believe my remembrance of events
depends much more upon the events themselves than upon my possessing
any special facility for recalling them. Perhaps I am too imaginative,
and the earliest impressions I received were of a kind to stimulate the
imagination abnormally. A long series of little misfortunes, so
connected with each other as to suggest a sort of weird fatality, so
worked upon my melancholy temperament when I was a boy that, before I
was of age, I sincerely believed myself to be under a curse, and not
only myself, but my whole family and every individual who bore my name.

I was born in the old place where my father, and his father, and all
his predecessors had been born, beyond the memory of man. It is a very
old house, and the greater part of it was originally a castle, strongly
fortified, and surrounded by a steep moat supplied with abundant water
from the hills by a hidden aqueduct. Many of the fortifications have
been destroyed, and the moat has been filled up. The water from