Miss Dory.

During her illness her hair had fallen out so fast that it had been cut
off, and now lay in soft rings around her forehead, giving her more the
look of a child than of a girl of twenty, as the plate on her coffin
indicated. "Eudora, aged twenty," was all there was on it, and glancing
at it Mr. Mason wondered there was no other name. Jake saw the look and
whispered. "I wan't gwine to lie an' put on 'Eudora Harris,' for she
ain't Eudora Harris, an' I didn't know t'other name for shoo. Ain't she
lovely!"

"She is, indeed," Mr. Mason said, feeling the moisture in his eyes, as
he looked at the young, innocent face on which there was no trace of
guilt.

He was sure of that without Jake's repeated assertion, "Fo' God, it's
all right, for she tole me so. Mostly, she'd say nothin'. She'd promised
she wouldn't, but jess fo' she died she said agen to me, 'I tole him I'd
keep dark till he come for me, but it's all right. Send for Elder Covil
'crost the river. He knows.' I've tole you this afore, I reckon, but my
mind is so full I git rattled."

By this time the bent figure sitting in the rocking-chair, near the
coffin began to show signs of life and whimper a little.

"'Scuse me," Jake said, pulling a shawl more squarely around her
shoulders and straightening her up. "Mas'r Mason, this is ole Miss Lucy.
Miss Lucy, this is Mas'r Mason, come to 'tend Miss Dory's funeral. Peart
up a little, can't you, and speak to him."