companions.

His new friends began to look forward each day to his coming and to
the invariable piece of news with which he entered.

"Miss Norah, what do you think?" he exclaimed one morning. "The moon's
awake and it's daytime!" and drawing her to the door he pointed out
the misty phantom in the southwestern sky, with the air of a
discoverer.

On another occasion, "Miss Norah, I can't stay very long to-day,
'cause my geranium is going to bloom."

It developed that James Mandeville's mother was ill in a sanitarium,
his father absorbed in business, and his only guardian an old colored
woman, known as Mammy Belle. Mammy Belle was of the type fast
disappearing. She wore head handkerchiefs of bright colors, and her
purple calicoes were stiff with starch and spotlessly neat. She
possessed the peculiar dignity that accompanied a faithful,
unquestioning acceptance of her station in life.

Mammy had sole charge of the Norton household, and no doubt it was a
relief to her to know that her charge had found so safe an asylum; but
on the occasion of her first visit the shopkeepers felt they were
being weighed in the balance. Her manner was apologetic and reserved,
as she stood, her hands folded on her white apron.

"'Tain't possible to keep dat chile at home," she explained. "Yes'm. I
takes keer of him. Miss Maimie, she's in a hospital, an' dey ain't
nobody to raise James Mandeville but his old mammy."

"I ain't comin', mammy," declared her charge, positively.

"Yes, you is comin', honey; don' you talk to mammy dat way. 'Tisn't
pretty. Looks like it's mighty hard to raise you polite, James
Mandeville."

Norah delighted to talk with her, and gathered from her conversation
that her greatest pleasure, next to a funeral, was to take James
Mandeville to white folks' church on Sunday afternoon, "to see dem
chillen march and sing." To her enthusiasm was due the aspiration of
her charge to be a choir boy, and he was often heard singing lustily
versions of "Onward, Christian Soldiers," and "O Paradise," which were
all his own.

"Dey's ladies, store or no store," Belle was overheard remarking to
Susanna. "I knows quality; you can't fool Belle, no'm."

* * * * *

"I never in my life felt so rich," Marion said, rattling the money
drawer.

It was Saturday evening at the end of their first week. All was in
order in the shop, the long table pushed back, the small one with the
lamp brought forward,