noticed--although always in his resigned fashion--the dull green
stagnation of the life around him, or when not accepting it as part
of his trouble he had not chafed at the arrested youth and senile
childishness of the people. Stranger still if he had not at times been
startled to hear the outgrown superstitions and follies of his youth
voiced again by grown-up men, and perhaps strangest of all if he had not
vaguely accepted it all as the hereditary curse of that barbarism under
which he himself had survived and suffered.

The reconciliation between himself and Mrs. Jeffcourt was superficially
effected, so far as a daily visit by him to the house indicated it to
the community, but it was also known that Julia was invariably absent
on these occasions. What happened at those interviews did not transpire,
but it may be surmised that Mrs. Jeffcourt, perhaps recognizing the fact
that Corbin was really giving her all that he had to give, or possibly
having some lurking fear of Colonel Starbottle, was so far placated as
to exhibit only the average ingratitude of her species towards a regular
benefactor. She consented to the erection of a small obelisk over her
son's grave, and permitted Corbin to plant a few flowering shrubs,
which he daily visited and took care of. It is said that on one of these
pilgrimages he encountered Miss Julia, apparently on the same errand,
who haughtily retired. It was further alleged, on the authority of one
of Mammy Judy's little niggers, that those two black mourning figures
had been seen at nightfall sitting opposite to each other at the head
and foot of the grave, and "glowerin'" at one another "like two hants."
But when it was asserted on the same authority that their voices had
been later overheard uplifted in some vehement discussion over the grave
of the impassive dead, great curiosity was aroused. Being pressed by
the eager Miss Sally to repeat some words or any words he had heard them
say, the little witness glibly replied, "Marse Linkum" (Lincoln), and