Major Bass said he wouldn’t, and he didn’t, and that is the reason he expressed surprise when Joe-Bob Grissom informed him that Jesse was waiting on the old Judge and his daughter. Major Jimmy was talkative and fond of gossip, but he had too much respect for his wife’s judgment and discretion to refuse to toe the mark, even when it was an imaginary one. The Bascom family had no claim whatever on Jesse, but he had often heard his mother and other negroes boasting over that they had once belonged to the Bascoms, and fondness for the family was the result of both tradition and instinct. He had that undefined and undefinable respect for people of quality that is one of the virtues, or possibly one of the failings, of human nature. The nearest approach to people of quality, so far as his experience went, was to be found in the Bascom family, and he had never forgotten that he had belonged to an important branch of it. He held it as a sort of distinction. Feeling thus, it is no wonder that he was ready to leave a comfortable home at Major Jimmy Bass’s for the privilege of attaching himself and his fortunes to those of the Judge and his daughter. Jesse made up his mind to take this step as soon as the Bascoms returned to Hillsborough, and he made no delay in carrying out his intentions. Early one morning, not long after Judge Bascom and his daughter had settled themselves in the modest little house which they had selected because the rent was low, Mildred heard some one cutting wood in the yard. Opening her window blinds a little, she saw that the axe was wielded by a stalwart negro a little past middle age. Her father was walking up and down the sidewalk on the outside with his hands behind him, and seemed to be talking to himself. A little while afterwards Mildred went into the kitchen. She found a fire burning in the stove, and everything in noticeably good order, but the girl she had employed to help her about the house was nowhere to be seen. Whereupon the young lady called her— “Elvira!” At this the negro dropped his axe and went into the kitchen. “Howdy, Mistiss?” “Have you seen Elvira?” Mildred asked. “Yes’m, she wuz hangin’ roun’ yer when I come roun’ dis mornin’. I went in dar, ma’m, en I see how de kitchen wuz all messed up, en den I sont her off. She de mos’ no ’countest nigger gal what I ever laid my two eyes on. I’m name’ Jesse, ma’m, en I use’ ter b’long ter de Bascom fambly when I wuz a boy. Is you ready fer breakfus, Mistiss?” “Has my father—has Judge Bascom employed you?” Mildred asked. Jesse laughed as though enjoying a good joke. “No ’m, dat he ain’t! I des come my own se’f, kaze I know’d in reason you wuz gwine ter be in needance er somebody. Lord, no ’m, none er de Bascoms don’t hafter hire me, ma’m.” “And who told you to send Elvira away?” Mildred inquired, half vexed and half amused.