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beautiful, and looked sweeter than ever before, and—yes, he was obliged to admit that he loved her. Sim Newsome, notwithstanding his humility, was a man who, when his mind was made up to do a thing, could go right along to it. So one day he went over there, and as soon as he had taken her hand and said good morning, he told her that he had come to ask if she would have him. Alley did not answer immediately, but stepped back to bring out a chair for him, and to see if Miss Maria had gone out, as she knew that she was expecting to do. It was then that, holding her eyes down, and looking at her hands folded in her lap, she answered that she would.

And now there were left Miss Maria and Mr. Downs. It would be a tedious recital of her lonesomeness all by herself in that big house, and the increased sense of it that lately had come to Mr. Downs in the smaller mansion which hitherto had been large enough to contain him and all his simple familiar things and ambitions. I could not say what influence interest in two romances had exerted upon a mind long unused to such things. But Jones

Kindrick having gotten out of Sim's way for good and all, and the latter no longer needing help to withstand his encroachings, Mr. Downs began to feel lonesome both for himself and for Miss Maria. I could not tell, because I never knew, nor did anybody else, precisely how these two got together. In the economy of the world, provision is made somewhere for all legitimate wants. We have been taught by microscopic investigation that even the protoplasm, which has neither eyes, nor mouth, nor ears, nor hands, nor feet, not inside, nor outside. yet knows how to seek and find affiliation with its kind, if for nothing else, for comfort in its solitude. By some sort of quasi-involuntary, but always friendly movements, executed in a comparatively brief time after Alley and her baby had been taken to the Newsome house, these two became one. Some people said that the continued multiplication of poor kin around them had something to do with it; but others argued that the winning card in the hands of Mr. Downs, so intended when he slipped it out of the pack, was that generous sacrifice which he had made for the survivor.

Richard Malcolm Johnston.

PHYLLIDA'S MOURNING.

BLUFF overlooking the turbid, swiftly flowing river, low hills rolling away beyond, a gray sky broken by one yellow streak in the west, and hot, breathless twilight hanging over all.

A wilderness of neglected paths, some for horse and some for man, crowned the bluff, separating from one another small irregular plats the tangled grass and shrubbery of which half hid the uneven clay mounds they contained. Over the hillocks were scattered, in more or less orderly arrangement, shells and broken china and glass, footless vases stuck into the earth, the bowls of old lamps, and marble images without noses. There was even a dilapidated doll or two among the medley. One would have imagined that children had chosen the spot for "playing house" on an abnormally large scale, had it not been for its distance from all habitations, and its air of desolation.

Two figures were outlined against the sky on the edge of the bluff. The taller was that of a slim, shapely mulatto girl of eighteen, who watched listlessly the busy fingers of the small figure squatted at her feet, very brown as to face, hands, bare legs, and curtailed gown. The only high lights in this sketch of nature were the whites of the eyes.

The child was planting a slip of geranium in a broken-spouted tea-pot of the Rebecca-at-thewell brand. "What mus' I name it, Phyllida?" she asked, pressing down the earth around the green stem. "I'm 'bliged to name it to make it grow good."

"Name it de Miss Lucy,' I reckon," said Phyllida, with a sigh so deep that it was almost a groan; "ol' Mis' give it to yo'. She would n' 'a' give it to me." She stooped and, taking the tea-pot, placed it carefully in a commanding position at the head of one of the low mounds, where it overlooked a happy combination of three tea-cups, a water-pitcher without a handle, a blue glass pickle-dish, two lamp-stands, and some broken vases. As she rose, she stepped back a pace or two to get the full effect, while an expression of satisfaction slowly dawned on her face.

"Dere now," she said, "dere ain' no prettier grave in de cemet'ry. Dey 's mo' t'ings on Sis' Charlotte's grave," pointing to an adjacent mound where a rusty tin coffee-pot and a large red-and-white-flowered bottle such as barbers use for bay-rum stood guard over the smaller articles that covered it entirely, "an' dey 's bigger t'ings on Unc' Joshua's," indicating a certain conspicuous white object in another direction, "but I would n' put no slop-jar on, don' care if did have a blue ban'. We on'y

got t'ings Mr. Brown love while he was 'live. I ain' dat kin' to stick t'ings on fo' show."

“Would n' all de bottles he done took de med'cine out'n look fine, Phyllida?" suggested the little sister. "Dey 's right smart of 'em." "An' make it jus' like Brer Hayne's grave over dere?" said Phyllida, pointing the finger of scorn at a rough inclosure of barrel-staves and old wire, so slight that a stray calf might have knocked it down, but the small gate of which was carefully secured with a large padlock. Twelve medicine-bottles symmetrically adorned the one mound within, five on each side, one at the head, and one at the foot, all bearing the legend clearly blown in the glass, "Smith's Never-Failing Cure."

"No; I ain' got no trash on Mr. Brown's grave," continued Phyllida. "I gi' 'im de bes' I got in de house-seem like it's all I can do," she added, turning away with a farewell glance of mingled pride and pathos.

"'Clar' to gracious, Phyllida," said the brown morsel, looking apprehensively over her shoulder as they walked on, "it 's gittin' pow'ful dark."

"All de better," returned the other, gloomily. "A widder dat has to wear a calico wid as many colors as Joseph's coat better go to de cemet'ry after dark."

Superstitious terror of the place was too strong for the child, however, and a cold shiver ran over her. She slipped her hand into her sister's. "I would n' 'a' come in de firs' dark fo' no one but you, Phyllida," she said quaveringly, "an' de black dark a-comin'. Heap better go early in de mo'nin'-nobody 'll see you den." "Seem like de trees 'u'd be 'bliged to laugh at a widder wid no crape," said Phyllida, despairingly, stopping before a grave they were passing. The underbrush grew thickly over it, almost concealing a crockery wash-bowl, half filled with drifted pine straw, on which lay a rubber rattle and two little worn baby shoes, weather-beaten and shriveled by many storms. "Dat was Sis' Nanny's baby; 'member dat baby, Nonsense?" The brown shadow had been christened Narcissus, but every-day use had shortened the name into a most inappropriate title for so grave a personage. "Sis' Nanny she put on crape fo' dat chile like 't was her husban'-a little no-'count baby!" Phyllida punctuated the sentence by walking on, greatly to her sister's relief. "An' when Brer Sampson die, look at de fun'al," she continued. "All de 'Gospel sisters' wid white hats an' crape ban's, an' de 'Chil'ren of Jerusalem' wid black hats an' white ban's, an' all wid deir society handkerchiefs-tell you, 't was mighty fine. An' de widder in de deepes' mo'nin'. An' was n' de Rev'end Mr. Brown as great a preacher as Brer Sampson, jus' yo'

tell me? Did Brer Sampson ever preach a sermon like dat one Brer Brown preach, 'bout de works of nature? Don' you 'member, Nonsense, how de No'the'n gen'l'man dat hear him write it all down? Don' you 'member how he draw himself up, an' whack de big Bible, an' say, 'O my bredren, we could any of us make de bumblebee, but who could put on de yaller fuzz?' An' here is Brer Brown's widder, dat ought 'a' be holdin' up her head in a crape bonnet and veil, sneakin' roun' in de dark to de cemet'ry, 'fraid to meet up wid somebody."

"I would n' min'," urged her faithful consoler, stoutly. "Brer Brown had a mighty fine fun'al, I hear ev'ybody say. De white preacher

come-"

"Mighty fine fun'al, sure 'nough," interrupted Phyllida, "an' de widder 'bliged to hide in de back room 'cause she got no mo'nin'!" The play of "Hamlet" with Hamlet left out would have been the only adequate comparison to Phyllida's mind, had she but known it. "De mo'nin''s de bigges' part of it, chile. When ole Unc' Paulus die, Aunt 'Liza mighty po❜lyso po❜ly she can' git out'n de bed. An' she put her mo'nin' bonnet an' veil an' black gloves on, an' set up in de bed an' see ev'ybody. If ol' Mis'-"

"I done ask ol' Mis', like you tell me," said the child, wistfully, "an' she say”

"Oh, I know what she say well 'nough. Ol' Mis' ain' never forgive me yet," said Phyllida, with a groan, and they went on their way in silence to the cabin that they called home.

It was on the "outside skirts" of town, Aunt Clotilda said. The girls' parents lived in it, and had given Phyllida one of its three rooms when her husband's paralytic stroke had forced him to quit preaching and become dependent on his newly married wife. Phyllida had worked her slender young fingers to the bone for him. She had taken in washing until her strength failed her for such heavy work; she had gone out sewing, cooking,- doing anything she could find,- to return at night to her half-helpless charge, whom his disease had made imbecile, and to care for him like a baby.

"Ol' Mis'" had given her scant help. "Phyllida," she had said to her two years before, when the girl of sixteen had been so flattered by the attentions of the aging preacher, and so proud to become his third wife-" Phyllida, I have told you once and again you are worse than foolish to think of marrying that old man. A preacher is not an angel, though you all seem to imagine so, and he is obliged to grow old like any other man. Does his being a preacher make him any younger? I tell you plainly, Phyllida, if you marry that old man, you must not expect me to do anything for you."

Phyllida had burst into tears, begged Mrs. Rutledge to forgive her, left the house, and married her preacher.

Mrs. Rutledge had relented sufficiently toward her favorite handmaiden, the daughter of one of her former slaves, to send her a substantial wedding present, but that was all. Phyllida did not dare go to see her, nor did she ever send for Phyllida. The fact that she took the younger daughter, Narcissus, and proceeded to train her up to fill her sister's place argued nothing more than that she preferred to have around her the "old-fashioned" kind of negroes, as she phrased it, respectful and docile, as any children of Aunt Clotilda were sure to be. Mrs. Rutledge had small patience for the class of flippant, impertinent young colored girls who announce a negro huckster to the mistress as a "gen'l'man who wants to see yo'," and refuse to live in a house where they cannot "call colored people ladies, and white folks women."

Narcissus lacked the cleverness and good looks of her sister, but she was quiet and industrious, at least. If Mrs. Rutledge revived the time-honored rule, relaxed in favor of the trustworthy Phyllida, of requiring a continuous whistling to be kept up while the raisins were being stoned for fruit-cake, it was not that she really doubted the child, but thought it as well to take precautions. Narcissus could whistle like any mocking-bird, and these involuntary concerts gave pleasure to everyone who overheard them. "Only Nonsense stoning raisins," Mrs. Rutledge would explain, with a quiet smile, to any visitor who remarked the music in the air. As months went by, Narcissus so grew in favor that her mistress began to have a comically irreligious dislike to her going to church, fearing that a taste for preachers might run in the family. But Narcissus was too young to develop ministerial tendencies yet. The whole wealth of her heart was lavished in dog-like devotion upon her pretty, unlucky elder sister, who worked so hard for the helpless old man and had so little pleasure. I cannot say Nonsense was sorry when Brer Brown died. Her chief concern was Phyllida's sorrow that she had no mourning to wear for the much-revered preacher husband. Brer Brown had belonged to one of the colored burial aid societies, which provided for his funeral; but the little means of the family had been exhausted during his long illness, and even debts incurred that rendered any further outlay impossible.

In despair, Phyllida had instructed Nonsense to apply to "ol' Mis'," as if of her own motion, for the loan, just for the funeral, of the bonnet and veil which Mrs. Rutledge had herself worn during the first year of her widowhood, and which now lay unused. Mrs. Rutledge

had responded dryly that Phyllida's husband's departure was not to be mourned, and she would lend no countenance to such a proceeding. So Phyllida, attaching an overstrained importance to the matter, had hidden herself during the funeral, and refused to appear at church afterward, or even on the street, except after dark. Meanwhile the devoted Narcissus silently turned the question over and over in the depths of her loving soul, and failed to discover any expedient, except one, before which she stood aghast at first. Her sense of meum and tuum was rather undeveloped, like that of many of the formerly enslaved race, but their sins are principally in the line of coveted food, and clothing is another and more awful matter. Yet there lay that bonnet and veil, and an old black gown besides, of no use to any one, in a trunk without a lock in the empty room at "ol' Mis's," and Narcissus could lay her little brown paws on them at any moment. "Ol' Mis'" would be very angry, to be sure, if ever she found it out, and "ol' Mis'" had been very good to her: but how had she treated her dear Phyllida? The small heart hardened.

She walked to her work the next morning with her usual companion, a "bright mulatto" girl, who, like herself, was a servant in one of the city families, and, following the Southern custom, went to her own home every night. Narcissus had much respect for her opinion, as that of an individual some years older than herself who had had the proud distinction of one term and a half at the "university."

"Lily," she said hesitatingly-"Lily, what you reckon 't is to steal?"

"Oh, go 'long, you no-'count nigger," returned Mentor, jocosely. ""T is mighty wicked to steal; dat 's all I know about it."

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Sutney 't is so," assented Narcissus; "but what yo' reckon 't is to steal? Takin' other folks's t'ings fo' yo'se'f?"

"'T ain't takin' your own t'ings, I reckon," said Lily, smartly, with a toss of the head. "But 'lowin' yo' wants 'em mighty bad. 'lowin' yo' needs 'em? Is dat stealin'?"

Lily scratched her head meditatively. "An' 'lowin' dey is n' fo' yo'se'f at all, dat can' be sure 'nough stealin'?" continued Narcissus, anxiously.

The strain was too much for Mentor's patience and theological knowledge, and she changed the subject.

"Here come I on my two chips," she began to sing airily,

"Who's goin' to kiss my ruby, ruby lips? "Nonsense, what you t'ink I heard Sunday evening? Bob Sims was inquirin' if 't was any use to try to fly roun' your Phyllida."

"Fly roun' our Phyllida?" repeated Narcissus, in dismayed perplexity. "Phyllida 's a widder."

"Huh," said Lily, "dat's it. I dunno wha' fo' all de men is plum' crazy after de widders. Bob Sims say he'd be mighty proud of de chance, sure 'nough. Den Ike Buzzard, dat nigger f'om de sand-hills, say he got no showance; he picked out dat Phyllida fo' himself. Den Bob Sims say de lady, Rev'end Mrs. Brown, might have a word herself to say 'bout it. I hope,' he say, 'dat you have n't de least conception dat I t'ink you 're a gen'l'man, speakin' dat way 'bout a lady.' An' he hol' his head up mighty gran', an' walk off."

Narcissus listened to the recital of this thrilling episode with wide-open eyes and mouth. Before she could enter further protest against regarding her sister in any other light than that of a permanent widow, however, Lily arrived at her bourn, and disappeared in the gateway of one of the large old houses, with wide galleries half hidden in green luxuriance, that lined the shady street.

Narcissus went on a block farther, to the Rutledge place. It was a mansion-house of ante-bellum days, whose ample, vine-hung porch, two-storied verandas, and wide encircling old-fashioned garden, its paths outlined with tall hedges of box, gave it a grand air that such trifles as weather-worn paint, a broken step, or a paling or two gone from the fence, failed to disturb. She went in, and entered upon her day's work, but with a languid air which was not natural to her. It attracted Mrs. Rutledge's attention. "Do, don't be so slow, Nonsense," said she once. "Aren't you well, child?"

"Yes, Miss Lucy," returned Narcissus, ambiguously; and she made a desperate spurt for a moment, and then was slower than ever. The day was so oppressive, there was such an unspeakable dullness in the air, that after all it was not to be wondered at, Mrs. Rutledge thought.

The breathless morning wore itself out at last, and the still more breathless afternoon succeeded it. The glowing sun dropped wearily into the west, lighting up the fires of a gorgeous sunset. Mrs. Rutledge remarked it, as she sat in the great hall, where the doors at each end stood open in order that the draft might draw what air there was to be caught through the screen of rose-vines. It was usually comfortable here, even in the fiercest weather, but to-day not a fold of her voluminous white wrapper stirred.

"Be sure you open the blinds up-stairs before you go."

"Yes, Miss Lucy," said Narcissus again, and slipped noiselessly up the ancient staircase running around three sides of the hall.

Mrs. Rutledge rocked on. A neighbor came in to chat for a few minutes, which prolonged themselves into the twilight before she took leave. Do wait a moment," said Mrs. Rutledge. "I'll have Nonsense gather some figs for you. Oh, Nonsense!"

But no Nonsense answered. Mrs. Rutledge called again.

"We won't wait on her. She must have gone home," she said at last, rising ponderously, with a little sigh, "though I scarcely remember her coming down-stairs. Let me take you out into the gyarden, where you can help yourself." And they passed out through the glass doors, under the great rose-vine, where a few summer Lamarques hung, white and beautiful, down the broad steps into the old-time garden.

The fire had long since burned itself out in the sky, and the darkness settled down, close, brooding, and sultry. Up-stairs in the empty room a little brown heap, fast asleep behind the trunk that contained the coveted bonnet, failed to wake when the first darkness would have covered a soft retreat. And the dull evening dragged on.

Something waked Narcissus at last. It might have been the continuous distressed lowing of the cow, or the wild barking of dogs, or the excited crowing of cocks far beyond the usual nocturnal serenade. It might have been the rumbling of a heavy train of cars on the railroad track near the house. In any case, her cramped position recalled to her instantly where she was, and the darkness warned her she had overslept. She sprang up and opened the trunk, while that portentous train came nearer and nearer.

Was the lid bewitched that it shook so in her hand? Every negro knew the old Rutledge place was haunted. Perhaps she was stealing, after all, and the ghost was going to appear to punish her. If she only had her daddy's graveyard rabbit-foot! But could a ghost shake the whole room till the windows rattled? What was happening?

With one spring, the child, clutching the illomened bonnet, landed in the entry, and essayed to go down the stairs. They rolled from side to side, like a ship in a storm, and the lighted lamp in the hall swung to and fro, pendulumwise. The walls seemed to beat her against the balusters, and the balusters to toss her back

"Oh, Nonsense!" she called from her rock- against the walls, a helpless shuttlecock between ing-chair.

two battledores. She threw the bonnet on her

"Yes, Miss Lucy," said Narcissus, appear- head, and clung to the rail, shrieking aloud in ing shadow-like in the doorway.

terror. From the negro settlement in the hol

low below the house floated up cries of "Lohd, hab mercy!" and more inarticulate screams and howls of despair.

""T is de Judgmen' Day!" gasped Narcissus, reeling down the rocking stairs, and falling at the feet of her mistress, who came hurrying from her chamber at that instant. The little brown figure, crowned by the preposterous bonnet with its veil trailing on the floor, clasped her knees with the strength of desperation and would not relax its hold.

"De Judgmen' Day! de Judgmen' Day!' she sobbed. "Sen' it away, Miss Lucy! sen' it away! It done come 'cause I so bad-I'll never steal no mo'. Do sen' it away!"

"Let go, child," said Mrs. Rutledge, sharply, freeing herself by force. "We must get out of the house; it's an earthquake!"

But the event was equally terrifying, what ever name it bore, and Narcissus's knees gave way under her, so that she was dragged, rather than led, out the door and to the brink of the long flight of steps. Her foot caught in the long veil, she lost her balance and fell, jerking her hand from Mrs. Rutledge's grasp. Down, down, she went, over and over, wound and wrapped and twisted in the length of the fatal veil, striking each separate stair with a distinct thud, till she reached the bottom. Then dead silence.

Mrs. Rutledge, her eyes dazzled by coming from the lighted house, looked off into the darkness, and saw nothing. "Nonsense," she cried anxiously, "where are you?"

She descended by a more stately stepping than her handmaiden. “Narcissus !" she called again, as she set foot on terra firma, which now once more merited the name. Fright made her voice hoarse and unnatural.

Something low and dark raised itself up painfully before her. As her eyes became accustomed to the night, she could dimly discern her small servant kneeling at her feet with clasped hands, a little Samuel in bronze. "Heah, Mars' Angel Gabriel," said she, solemnly.

"Narcissus!" said Mrs. Rutledge once more, fearing the fall had shaken the child's wits as well as her body.

"Heah I am, Mars' Angel Gabriel," repeated Narcissus in the same awe-struck tone, raising her eyes to the tall white figure looming over her. Mrs. Rutledge had been forced to appear on the scene in a somewhat impromptu costume. "O good Mars' Angel Gabriel, I did reckon 't was n't plum' stealin' when 't was for Phyllida, but now I s'pect it was. I never—"

"Nonsense!" cried Mrs. Rutledge, giving her a little shake. "Don't you know me?

What are you talking about? What did you have on your head in the hall ?"

Narcissus started as the voice became once more familiar to her. She stooped and felt about on the ground for something which she at last found and held up toward her mistress -a something battered and shapeless, from which a long ragged tail dangled dismally. "Dis!" she said.

All the tragedy of the crime that thwarts its own ends was in her tone.

Some months afterward, one bright afternoon when the great earthquake was a thing of the past, a light tap sounded at the door of Mrs. Rutledge's room.

"Come in," she said. There was a slight hesitation, and then, to her surprise, Phyllida entered, a transformed, glorified Phyllida, whose fresh crape bonnet and veil framed in a face bewitching with suppressed excitement. Her long eyelashes swept the dark-olive cheek with a certain demure consciousness, and betrayed the radiance of the downcast eyes.

"Phyllida! I had no idea it was you," said Mrs. Rutledge, not unkindly, though a remnant of her old deep-seated wrath at the notion of mourning for Brother Brown stirred in her breast.

"Howdy, Miss Lucy?" said Phyllida, with some traces of embarrassment. "How's all?” "We 're right well. I know you are all well at home, or Nonsense would have told me." "We're tol'ble," said Phyllida, fingering her handsome black dress with nervous hands.

"I suppose you have come to show me your new mourning?" said Mrs. Rutledge, relenting somewhat, touched by the girl's evident discomfort. "It becomes you, Phyllida. How did you contrive to get it ?”

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My husban' give it to me, Miss Lucy," said Phyllida, without raising her eyes.

"Your husband!" echoed Mrs. Rutledge, not without a blood-curdling premonition of a new species of ghost-story.

"Yes, Miss Lucy. Bob Sims. I was married to him last Saturday. He give me de mo'nin' fo' a weddin' gif'. I tol' Nonsense not to tell yo'. I wanted to surprise yo'. I thought yo' 'd be please dis time?"-pleadingly.

Mrs. Rutledge was silent for a moment as she bent her head over her work. Then she said, her voice tremulous with some sort of emotion, “Phyllida, I—I congratulate you. There can be no doubt that such a considerate bridegroom will make a good husband."

And Nonsense, standing in the doorway, shadowlike but triumphant, felt that the awful memory of the night of the earthquake was the one flaw in the splendor of this scene.

Grace Wilbur Conant.

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