college days a criticism had arisen in his mind, but it came slowly, and
was tempered by that tenderness every one feels for the spot called
home. Now, as he stood looking at it, he wondered how human beings lived
there at all. He wondered if Ida May used water from the Niggertown
well.

He turned to ask old Caroline, but checked himself with a man's
instinctive avoidance of mentioning his intimacies to his mother. At
that moment, oddly enough, the old negress brought up the topic herself.

"Ida May wuz 'quirin' 'bout you las' night, Peter."

A faint tingle filtered through Peter's throat and chest, but he asked
casually enough what she had said.

"Didn' say; she wrote."

Peter looked around, frankly astonished.

"Wrote?"

"Yeah; co'se she wrote."

"What made her write?" a fantasy of Ida May dumb flickered before the
mulatto.

[Illustration: Up and down its street flows the slow negro life of the
village]

"Why, Ida May's in Nashville." Caroline looked at Peter. "She wrote to