the Bishop's feet. Suddenly the erect, iron-gray head plunged madly
forward, and then, with a frantic effort and a parabola or two,
recovered itself, while from the tall grass by the side of the path
gurgled up a high, soft, ecstatic squeal. The Bishop, his face flushed
with the stumble and the heat and a touch of indignation besides,
straightened himself with dignity and felt for his hat, while his eyes
followed a wriggling cord that lay on the ground, up to a small brown
fist. A burnished head, gleaming in the sunshine like the gilded ball
on a church steeple, rose suddenly out of the waves of dry grass, and a
pink-ginghamed figure, radiant with joy and good-will, confronted him.
The Bishop's temper, roughly waked up by the unwilling and unepiscopal
war-dance just executed, fell back into its chains.

"Did you tie that string across the path?"

"Yes," The shining head nodded. "Too bad you didn't fell 'way down. I'm
sorry. But you kicked awf'ly."

"Oh! I did, did I?" asked the Bishop. "You're an unrepentant young
sinner. Suppose I'd broken my leg?"

The head nodded again. "Oh, we'd have patzed you up," she said
cheerfully. "Don't worry. Trust in God."

The Bishop jumped. "My child," he said, "who says that to you?"

"Aunt Basha." The innocent eyes faced him without a sign of
embarrassment. "Aunt Basha's my old black mammy. Do you know her? All
her name's longer'n that. I can say it." Then with careful, slow
enunciation, "Bathsheba Salina Mosina Angelica Preston."