At last, when Rosina, with eyes kept always timidly askance, half the time upon the frightful skull, and half the time on Isaac Pourtalès, had fairly come to the end of her tether, the old African ventured, with tentative cunning, to put a leading question: ‘You ebber hear dem say at de table, missy, who him mudder and fader is, and where dem come from?’ ‘Him fader is very great gentleman ober in Englan’,’ Rosina answered confidently—‘very grand gentleman, wit house an’ serbant, an’ coach an’ horses, an’ plenty cane-piece, an’ rum an’ sugar, an’ yam garden an’ plantain, becase I ’member Aunt Clemmy say so; an’ de missy him say so himself too, sah. An’ de missy say dat de pusson dat marry him will be real le-ady—same like de gubbernor le-ady; real le-ady, like dem hab in Englan’. De missy tellin’ me all about him dis bery ebenin’.’ Delgado smiled. ‘Den de missy in lub wit him himself, for certain,’ he answered with true African shrewdness and cynicism. ‘Ole-time folk has proverb, “When naygur woman say, ‘Dat fowl fat,’ him gwine to steal him same ebenin’ for him pickany dinner.” An’ when le-ady tell you what happen to gal dat marry gentleman, him want to hab de gentleman himself for him own husband.’ ‘O no, sah; dat doan’t so,’ Rosina cried with sudden energy. ‘De missy doan’t lubbin’ de buckra gentleman at all. She tell me him look altogedder too much like naygur.’ Delgado and Pourtalès exchanged meaning looks with one another, but neither of them answered a word to Rosina. ‘An’ him mudder?’ Delgado inquired curiously after a moment’s pause, taking a lazy puff at a cigarette which Isaac handed him. ‘Him mudder!’ Rosina said. ‘Ah, dere now, I forgettin’ clean what Uncle ’Zekiel, him what is butler up to de house dar, an’ hear dem talk wit one anodder at dinner—I forgettin’ clean what it was him tell me about him mudder.’ Delgado did not urge her to rack her feeble little memory on this important question, but waited silently, with consummate prudence, till she should think of it herself and come out with it spontaneously. ‘Ha, dere now,’ Rosina cried at last, after a minute or two of vacant and steady staring at the orbless eyeholes of the skull opposite; ‘I is too chupid—too chupid altogedder. Mistah ’Zekiel, him tellin’ me de odder marnin’ dat Mistah Noel’s mudder is le-ady from Barbadoes.—Dat whar you come from youself, Isaac, me fren’. You must be ’memberin’ de family ober in Barbadoes.’ ‘How dem call de family?’ Isaac asked cautiously. ‘You ebber hear, Rosie, how dem call de family? Tell me, dar is good girl, an’ I gwine to lub you better’n ebber.’