with me too, in case YO' CHANGED YO'R MIND."

He raised himself on his pillow as she turned quickly away; but in that
single vanishing glimpse of her bright face he saw what neither he nor
any one else had ever seen upon the face of Sally Dows--a burning blush!

"Miss Sally!" He almost leaped from the bed, but she was gone. There was
another rustle at the door--the entrance of Sophy.

"Call her back, Sophy, quick!" he said.

The negress shook her turbaned head. "Not much, honey! When Miss Sally
say she goes--she done gone, shuah!"

"But, Sophy!" Perhaps something in the significant face of the girl
tempted him; perhaps it was only an impulse of his forgotten youth.
"Sophy!" appealingly--"tell me!--is Miss Sally engaged to her cousin?"

"Wat dat?" said Sophy in indignant scorn. "Miss Sally engaged to dat
Dumont! What fo'? Yo' 're crazy! No!"

"Nor Champney? Tell me, Sophy, has she a LOVER?"

For a moment the whites of Sophy's eyes were uplifted in speechless
scorn. "Yo' ask dat! Yo' lyin' dar wid dat snake-bit arm! Yo' lyin' dar,
and Miss Sally--who has only to whistle to call de fust quality in de
State raoun her--coming and going here wid you, and trotting on yo'r
arrants--and yo' ask dat! Yes! she has a lover, and what's me', she
CAN'T HELP IT; and yo' 're her lover; and what's me', YO' can't help it
either! And yo' can't back out of it now--bo'fe of yo'--nebber! Fo' yo'
're hers, and she's yo'rs--fo' ebber. For she sucked yo' blood."

"What!" gasped Courtland, aghast at what he believed to be the sudden
insanity of the negress.

"Yes! Whar's yo'r eyes? whar's yo'r years? who's yo' dat yo' didn't see
nor heah nuffin? When dey dragged yo' outer de swamp dat night--wid de
snake-bite freshen yo'r arm--didn't SHE, dat poh chile!--dat same Miss
Sally--frow herself down on yo', and put dat baby mouf of hers to de
wound and suck out de pizen and sabe de life ob yo' at de risk ob her
own? Say? And if dey's any troof in Hoodoo, don't dat make yo' one blood
and one soul! Go way, white man! I'm sick of yo'. Stop dar! Lie down
dar! Hol' on, co'nnle, for massy's sake. Well, dar--I'll call her back!"

And she did!

"Look here--don't you know--it rather took me by surprise," said
Champney, a few days later, with a hearty grip of the colonel's
uninjured hand; "but I don't bear malice, old fellow, and, by Jove! it
was SUCH a sensible, all-round, business-like choice for the girl to
make that no wonder we never thought