shouting the name of some one who was to marry her successful companion;
if the shoe fell within the line they laughed even louder than before,
and called out the names of all the oldest and dirtiest slaves. A dusky
Syrian had failed to hit the mark, but she boldly seized the chalk and
drew a fresh line between herself and the shoe so that it lay beyond, at
any rate; and their merriment reached a climax when a number of them
rushed up to wipe out the new line, a saucy, crisp-haired Nubian tossed
the shoe in the air and caught it again, while the rest could not cease
for delight in such a good joke and cried every name they could think of
as that of the lover for whom their companion had so boldly seized a
spoke in Fortune's wheel.

Some spirit of mirth seemed to have taken up his quarters in the draughty
shed; the group round the sketcher was not less noisy than the other. If
a likeness was recognized they were all triumphant, if not they cried the
names of this or that one for whom it might be intended. A storm of
applause greeted a successful caricature of the severest of the
overseers. All who saw it held their sides for laughing, and great was
the uproar when one of the girls snatched away the tablet and the rest
fell upon her to scuffle for it.

Paula had watched all this at first with distant amazement, shaking her
head. How could they find so much pleasure in such folly, in such
senseless amusements? When she was but a little child even she, of
course, could laugh at nothing, and these grown-up girls, in their
ignorance and the narrow limitations of their minds, were they not one
and all children still? The walls of the governor's house enclosed their
world, they never looked beyond the present moment--just like children;
and so, like children, they could laugh.