mantel sheltering an open fireplace, and on cold days
--and there were some pretty cold days about Kennedy
Square--two roaring wood-fires dispensed comfort,
the welcoming blaze of each reflected in the shining
brass fire-irons and fenders.

Adjoining the library was the dining-room with its
well-rubbed mahogany table, straight-backed chairs,
and old sideboard laden with family silver, besides a
much-coveted mahogany cellaret containing some of
that very rare Madeira for which the host was famous.
Here were more easy-chairs and more portraits--one
of Major Horn, who fell at Yorktown, in cocked hat
and epaulets, and two others in mob-caps and ruffles
--both ancient grandmothers of long ago.

The "li'l room ob Marse Richard," to which in the
morning Malachi directed all his master's visitors, was
in an old-fashioned one-story out-house, with a sloping
roof, that nestled under the shade of a big tulip-
tree in the back yard--a cool, damp, brick-paved old
yard, shut in between high walls mantled with ivy
and Virginia creeper and capped by rows of broken
bottles sunk in mortar. This out-building had once
served as servants' quarters, and it still had the open
fireplace and broad hearth before which many a black
mammy had toasted the toes of her pickaninnies, as
well as the trap-door in the ceiling leading to the loft
where they had slept. Two windows which peered out
from under bushy eyebrows of tangled honeysuckle