lighted; his old, white-haired father, in his high-backed chair, sipping
his wine from the slender glass.

Ah, the proud estate of the old plantation days! Would they ever be
his again?




CHAPTER IV

_The Arrival of a True Southern Lady_


"Mistress yer, sah! Come yistidd'y mawnin'."

How Chad beamed all over when this simple statement fell from his lips!
I had not seen him since the night when he stood behind my chair and
with bated breath whispered his anxieties lest the second advent of
"de grocerman" should bring dire destruction to the colonel's household.

To-day he looked ten years younger. His kinky gray hair, generally
knotted into little wads, was now divided by a well-defined path
starting from the great wrinkle in his forehead and ending in a dense
tangle of underbrush that no comb dared penetrate. His face glistened
all over. His mouth was wide open, showing a great cavity in which
each tooth seemed to dance with delight. His jacket was as white and
stiff as soap and starch could make it, while a cast-off cravat of the
colonel's--double starched to suit Chad's own ideas of propriety--was
tied in a single knot, the two ends reaching to the very edge of each