"Money, suh? You know what make Miss Amy fall down and so weak?
Stahvation, sub. Nothin' to eat in dis house but some crumbly crackers
in three days. Dat angel sell her finger rings and watch mont's ago.
Dis fine house, suh, wid de red cyarpets and shiny bureaus, it's all
hired; and de man talkin' scan'lous about de rent. Dat debble--'scuse
me, Lawd--he done in Yo' hands fer jedgment, now--he made way wid
everything."

The physician's silence encouraged her to continue. The history that he
gleaned from Cindy's disordered monologue was an old one, of illusion,
wilfulness, disaster, cruelty and pride. Standing out from the blurred
panorama of her gabble were little clear pictures--an ideal home in
the far South; a quickly repented marriage; an unhappy season, full of
wrongs and abuse, and, of late, an inheritance of money that promised
deliverance; its seizure and waste by the dog-wolf during a two
months' absence, and his return in the midst of a scandalous carouse.
Unobtruded, but visible between every line, ran a pure white thread
through the smudged warp of the story--the simple, all-enduring, sublime
love of the old negress, following her mistress unswervingly through
everything to the end.

When at last she paused, the physician spoke, asking if the house
contained whiskey or liquor of any sort. There was, the old woman
informed him, half a bottle of brandy left in the sideboard by the
dog-wolf.

"Prepare a toddy as I told you," said Doctor James. "Wake your mistress;
have her drink it, and tell her what has happened."

Some ten minutes afterward, Mrs. Chandler entered, supported by old