if there was one."

"Who was the man?" Mr. Mason asked, and the landlord replied, "Some
Northern cuss she met in Georgia where she was staying a spell with her
kin. A high blood, they say. Attracted by her pretty face, I suppose,
and then got tired of her, or was too proud to own up. I wasn't landlord
then, but I've heard about it. I think he was here once three or four
years ago. He came on the 'Hatty' and staid on her--the house was so
full. Didn't register, nor anything--nor tell his name to a livin' soul.
One or two ast him square, I b'lieve, but he either pretended not to
hear 'em, or got out of it somehow. Acted prouder than Lucifer. Walked
along the shore and in the woods, and went to the clearin'--some said
to buy that limb of a Mandy Ann, but more to see Miss Dory. All the time
he was on the boat he was so stiff and starched that nobody wanted to
tackle him, and that girl--I mean Miss Dory--has kept a close mouth
about him, and when her baby was born, and some of the old cats talked
she only said, 'It is all right, I'm a good girl,' and I b'lieve she
was. But that Northern cuss needs killin'. He sends her money, they say,
through some friend in Palatka, who keeps his mouth shut tight, but
neither she nor Jake will use a cent of it. They are savin' it to
educate the little girl and make a lady of her, if nobody claims her. A
lady out of a Cracker! I'd laugh! That Jake is a dandy. He's free, but
has stuck to the Harrises because his father belonged to old Mrs.
Harris. He is smarter than chain lightnin', if he is a nigger, and knows
more than a dozen of some white men. He drives a white mule, and has
managed to put a top of sail cloth on an old ramshackle buggy, which he
calls a 'shay.' You'll go to the funeral in style."

Mr. Mason made no reply. He was thinking of Dory, and beginning to feel
a good deal of interest in her and her story, and anxious to see her,