 interviewed on the front veranda by Thérèse and Melicent, spoke out.

“Dey ’low ’roun’ yere, dat you’s mean to de black folks, ma’am: dat what dey says—I don’ know me.”

“Mean,” cried Melicent, amazed, “in what way, pray?”

“Oh, all sort o’ ways,” he admitted, with a certain shy brazenness; determined to go through with the ordeal.

“Dey ’low you wants to cut de little gals’ plaits off, an’ sich—I don’ know me.”

“Do you suppose, Nathan,” said Thérèse attempting but poorly to hide her amusement at Melicent’s look of dismay, “that Miss Hosmer would bother herself with darkies’ plaits?”

“Dat’s w’at I tink m’sef. Anyways, I’ll sen’ Ar’minty ’roun’ to-morrow, sho.”

Melicent was not without the guilty remembrance of having one day playfully seized one of the small Mandy’s bristling plaits, daintily between finger and thumb, threatening to cut them all away with the scissors which she carried. Yet she could not but believe that there was some deeper motive underlying this systematic reluctance of the negroes to give their work in exchange for the very good pay which she offered. Thérèse soon enlightened her with the information that the negroes were very averse to working for Northern people whose speech, manners, and attitude towards themselves were unfamiliar. She was given the consoling assurance of not being the only victim of this boycott, as Thérèse recalled many examples of strangers whom she knew to have met with a like cavalier treatment at the darkies’ hands.

Needless to say, Araminty never appeared.

Hosmer and Melicent were induced to accept Mrs. Lafirme’s generous hospitality; and one of that lady’s many supernumeraries was detailed each morning to “do up” Miss Melicent’s rooms, but not without the previous understanding that the work formed part of Miss T’rèse’s system.

Nothing which had happened during the year of his residence at Place-du-Bois had furnished Hosmer such amusement as these misadventures of his sister Melicent, he having had no like experience with his mill hands.

It is not unlikely that his good humor was partly due to the acceptable arrangement which assured him the daily society of Thérèse, whose presence was growing into a need with him.[Back to Table of Contents]

V
In the Pine Woods.

When Grégoire said to Melicent that there was no better woman in the world than his Aunt Thérèse, “W’en you do like she wants,” the statement was so incomplete as to leave one in uncomfortable doubt of the expediency of venturing within the influence of so exacting a nature. True, Thérèse required certain conduct from others, but she was willing to further its
