"I guess that's so," said Margaret. "I used to think--" Then with sudden helplessness--"I don't know what I think nowadays. Well--I'll stay." And when she sat down to the cosy meal with Philip across from her and Mammy Cely in beaming attendance, she wondered that she could ever have been so blind as not to see that this gave her an advantage that an hour's stay never could. How much easier to keep herself in Philip's remembrance if she sat thus with him every time she came.... Surely Richard De Jarnette could not have thought of this. CHAPTER XXVIII HEARTS AND SKINS "Mammy Cely," said Philip one day after a thoughtful consideration of her face, "what makes you black?" "I can't he'p it, honey. God made me that way." The child looked at her in perplexity. "Well, what did he do it for?" There was no answer to this somewhat difficult question, and he continued, "Wouldn't you rather be white?" "Co'se I'd ruther be white," replied Mammy Cely, "but when the Lord made me He wasn't askin' 'bout my druthers." "Oh!" said Philip, wondering what her "druthers" were, but adding after a while in extenuation of the Almighty's ways, "Perhaps he forgot it." He felt convinced that it was a mistake and it might not be too late yet to remedy it. He determined to incorporate into his nightly prayer for her a petition for a change of color. He was careful never to voice this when he was saying his prayers to her for he wanted it to come to her as a surprise. Every morning his first concern was to see whether the transformation had been wrought in the night. Mammy Cely could not understand his eager look into her face each day and his subsequent look of disappointment. Still he prayed on. One day a sudden thought came to him and he hunted her up. "Mammy Cely, I know now what will make you white!" "Well, 'fo' the Lord!" said Mammy Cely to herself. "He's still harpin' on that same ole string." Then with animation, "What is it, honey? What gwineter work that meracle?" "You must wash in the blood of a lamb. I've thes 'membered about it. And it will make you whiter than the snow." "That's so!" said the old woman, reverently. "Bless the Lord, I gwineter be white some day!" She said it so confidently that Philip was still looking for the time to come. He was a mature child for his years, like most children reared without companions of their own age. To Mr. De Jarnette, unaccustomed as he was to children, it seemed sometimes that the things he said were positively uncanny, when in fact they were but the natural working of a childish brain. Mammy Cely told him what Philip had said about the lamb. "Where in the world did he get that?" he asked, wonderingly. "I reckon he had heared the song and thought it meant changin' of the skins 'stidder the hearts."