not willing to commit themselves until their leader Mrs. Thomas had done
so. On the strength of living in a frame house, owning two or three
negroes and a democrat wagon, she was a power among them. What she
thought some of those less favored than herself thought. When she "gave
in" they would, and not before. Up to the present time there had been no
signs of "giving in" on the part of the lady, whose shoulders still
hunched and whose head shook when Eudora was mentioned. She should go to
the funeral, in course, she said. She owed it to ole Miss Harris, and
she really had a good deal of respect for the nigger Jake. So she came
in her democrat wagon and straw bonnet, and because she was Mrs. Thomas,
walked uninvited into the room where the coffin stood, and looked at
Eudora.

"I'd forgot she was so purty. It's a good while sense I seen her," she
thought, a feeling of pity rising in her heart for the young girl whose
face had never looked fairer than it did now with the seal of death upon
it. "And s'true's I live she's got a ring on her weddin' finger! Why
didn't she never war it afore an' let it be known?" she said to herself,
stooping down to inspect the ring, which to her dim old eyes seemed like
the real coin. "She wouldn't _lie_ in her coffin, an' I b'lieve she was
good after all, an' I've been too hard on her," she continued, waddling
to a seat outside, and communicating her change of sentiment to the
woman next to her, who told it to the next, until it was pretty
generally known that "ole Miss Thomas had _gin in_, 'case Miss Dory had
on her weddin' ring."

Nearly every one else present had "gin in" long before, and now that
Mrs. Thomas had declared herself, the few doubtful ones followed her
lead, and there were only kind, pitying words said of poor Dory, as they
waited for the minister to come, and the services to begin.