minutes.

"Now, Cunnel," began Jimpson nervously. He had evidently rehearsed
this scene in the past.

"Just answer my questions," insisted the Colonel. "_Is_ this my
house?"

"Yas, sir, but Carline, she--"

"And are you my nigger?" persisted the Colonel plaintively.

"Yas, sir; but you see, Carline--"

"And haven't I, for twenty years," persisted the Colonel, "been taking
a mint julep at half past two on Sunday afternoons?"

"Yas, sir, I was a comin'--"

"Then you don't regard it as an unreasonable request, that a gentleman
should ask his own nigger, in his own house, to bring him a small
piece of ice?" The Colonel's sense of injury was becoming so
overpowering that the offender might have been crushed by contrition
had not a laugh made them both look up.

Standing in the doorway was a young girl in a short riding habit, and
a small hat of red felt that was carelessly pinned to her bright,
tumbled hair. Her eyes were dark, and round like those of a child, and
they danced from object to object as if eager to miss none of the good
things that the world had to offer. Joy of life and radiant youth