'Good, Mistiss, enty? En Maum Chloe e'en cut de pain mo''. She fumbled beneath the bed, brought up the knife, thrust it rhythmically backward and forward a foot above the tossing, restless figure. Mrs. Alston grew quieter, her eyelids fell slowly.

Maria returned from the mantelpiece, a pile of wax pellets and fuzz in her cupped hand. 'Those worthless niggers—they never think to clean, unless you stand over them every minute. I found dust near half an inch thick over there behind the clock. If this were my house, I'd order ten lashes apiece for the whole parcel of them. They'd soon mend their ways.'

'Oh, hush,' begged Theo. 'Mrs. Alston is sleeping, and I

—I'm very tired. Won't you please show me my room?'

When Maria at last complied, Theo dropped down on the bed too exhausted to remove her dress. The fatigues of the long journey, her difficulties with Joseph, the ordeal of meeting the Alstons, were all overshadowed by the weird scene she had just witnessed in the great front chamber. How could intelligent people accept all the huggermuggery and black magic of the African mind for their own! Twins because a bird had called twice, a brandished knife and a dirty piece of root to deaden pain! Most monstrous of all, the hideous doll that was supposed to prophesy the exact moment of deliverance!

She pictured her father's incredulous amusement when she should tell him of this. She knew so well his hearty scorn for superstition, his calm, realistic approach to fact. Yet with it he had immense sympathy for suffering. He would have been as appalled as she by Maria's callous indifference, and the rest of the family's elaborate ignoring of Mrs. Alston's danger. Mrs. Alston. But I am Mrs. Alston too. This is now my family, my home, my country.

She buried her face in the pillow. 'I hate it here; I want to go home,' she whispered, and at the sound of her own voice she burst into tears.

She did not hear the door open, and started as Joseph touched her, saying, 'Why, Theo, my dearest girl, what is the matter?'

He raised her, holding her quivering body close to him.

'What in the world has happened?' he insisted.

She could not tell him that she was lonely and frightened, that she longed bitterly for her father, but she was grateful for the comfort of his arms about her. Her head fell against his breast, her sobs quieted.

Finding that she would not speak beyond a murmur of 'headache,' he kissed her and dismissed the matter as female vagary.

'The family are pleased with you,' he said presently, and went to the mirror to rearrange his stock. 'They find you pretty. My father and brothers agree that they have never seen so fine a pair of dark eyes, and Mrs. Huger—Aunt Allston that was, of the double "1" branch—says you are a sweet creature.'