and kept him comfortable, trudging over
and back every day from the little cottage, but she proved invaluable
in the choice of domestic help. She knew her people thereabouts, just
who was spry, and who was trifling, and with the latter she would have
nothing whatever to do. She acted rather as if he were a guest in his
own house, and what was more would take no pay for it. Of course there
had to be some return for so much kindness, and it took the form of
various gifts of flowers and fruit from the old place to the new
cottage. And sometimes when Bartley had forgotten to speak of it
before mammy had left, he would arrange his baskets and carry his
offering over himself. Mima thought it was very thoughtful and kind of
him, and she wondered on these occasions if they ought not to keep Mr.
Northcope to tea, and if mammy would not like to make some of those
nice muffins of hers that he had liked so, and mammy always smiled on
her charge, and said, "Yes, honey, yes, but hit do 'pear lak' dat
Mistah No'thcope do fu'git mo' an' mo' to sen' de t'ings ovah by me
w'en I's daih."

But mammy found her special charge when the elder Northcope came. It
seemed that she could never do enough for the pale, stooped old man,
and he declared that he had never felt better in his life than he grew
to feel under her touch. An injury to his spine had resulted in
partially disabling him, but his mind was a rich store of knowledge,
and his disposition was tender and cheerful. So it pleased his son
sometimes to bring Mima over to see him.

The warm, impulsive heart of the Southern girl went out to him, and
they became friends at once. He found in her that soft, caressing,
humoring quality that even his son's devotion could not supply, and
his superior age, knowledge and wisdom made up to her the lost
father's care for which Peggy's love illy substituted. The tenderness
grew between them. Through the long afternoons she would read to him
from his favorite books, or would listen to him as he talked of the
lands where he had been, and the things he had seen. Sometimes Mammy
Peggy grumbled at the reading, and said it "wuz jes' lak' doin' hiahed
wo'k," but Mima only laughed and went on.

Bartley saw the sympathy between them and did not obtrude his
presence, but often in the twilight when she started away, he would
slip out of some corner and walk home with her.

These little walks together were very pleasant, and on one occasion he
had asked her