"Well, then, here we are. I came to the side door so I wouldn't have
to introduce you to any of the boys this morning, for we want to have
a talk with the Governor before dinner and I don't dare keep Kizzie
waiting. It riles her, and a riled woman burns up things: masters,
husbands, cooking or worse. Come on." And as we walked up the broad
side steps of that Mansion of the Gouverneur, my Uncle Robert's hand
was on my arm and I felt that I was being marched up to the mouth of
the gun of Fate and I wished very much I could have been habited in my
corduroy or cheviot skirts, no matter how short or narrow they might
be. A number of gentlemen sat upon the wide verandah smoking pipes or
long cigars under the budding rose vine that trailed from one tall
pillar to another, and more stood and talked in groups beside the
large front door that opened into the wide hall. At the back of the
hall before a closed door stood a very large black man who was very
old and bent and who had tufts of white wool of the aspect of a sheep
upon his head. He was attired in a long gray coat of a military cut
that I afterwards learned was of the late Confederacy, and I soon had
much affection for him because of his reminiscences of that war and
also because of his affection for my noble father, to whom he had told
the same stories' in his early youth.

My Uncle, the General Robert, had not paused to present to me any of
the gentlemen with whom he had exchanged jovial greetings, but he
stopped beside the old black man and said:

"This is Henry's boy, Robert, Cato. Fine young chap, eh?"

"Yes, sir, Mas' Robert," answered Cato as he peered into my face with
the nicest affection in his black eyes set in large spaces of white.