ar from Theodore's hand, she executed all the
flourishes slowly and precisely, making him follow her, note for note.
Then he must sing it all over again while she beat the time with her
long, slender foot, incased in a black-silk slipper of her own making.
The ladies of the Daarg family always wore slippers--the heavy-sounding
modern boot they considered a structure suitable only for persons of
plebeian origin. A lady should not even step perceptibly; she should
glide.

"Miss 'Lisabeet, de toas' is ready. Bress de chile, how sweet he sings
to-night! Mos' like de mock-bird's self, Mass' Doro."

So spoke old Viny, the one servant of the house, a broad-shouldered,
jet-black, comfortable creature, with her gray wool peeping from beneath
a gay turban. She had belonged to Doro's Spanish mother, but, when Miss
Elisabetha came South to take the house and care for the orphan-boy, she
had purchased the old woman, and set her free immediately.

"It don't make naw difference as I can see, Miss 'Lisabeet," said Viny,
when the new mistress carefully explained to her that she was a free
agent from that time forth. "'Pears harnsome in you to do it, but it
arn't likely I'll leabe my chile, my Doro-boy, long as I lib--is it,
now? When I die, he'll have ole Viny burred nice, wid de priests, an' de
candles, an' de singing, an' all."

"Replace your guitar, Theodore," said Miss Elisabetha, rising, "and then
walk to and fro between here and the gate ten times. Walk briskly, and
keep your mouth shut; after singing you should always guard against the
damps."

The boy obeyed in his dreamy way, pacing down the white path, made hard
with pounded oyster-shells, to the high stone wall. The old iron-clamped
gate, which once hung between the two pomegranate-topped pillars, was
gone; for years it had leaned tottering half across the entrance-way,
threatening to brain every comer, but Miss Elisabetha had ordered its
removal in the twinkling of her Northern eye, and in its place now hung
a neat, incongruous little wicket, whose latch was a standing bone of
contention between the mistress and the entire colored population of the
small village.

"Go back and latch the gate," was her constantly repeated order; "the
cows might enter and injure the garden."

"But th' arn't no cows, Miss 'Lisabeet."

"There should be, then," the ancient maiden would reply, severely.
"Grass would grow with a little care and labor; look at our pasture. You
are much too