“It’s queer,” thought the young master of the plantation, “how devotedly loyal all the negroes are to Dorothy. Nobody--not even Williams the overseer,--was ever so exacting as she is in requiring the most rigid performance of duty. Ever since she punished Ben for bringing her an imperfectly groomed horse, that chronically lazy fellow has taken the trouble every night to put her mare’s mane and tail into some sort of equine crimping apparatus, so that they may flow gracefully in the morning. And he does it for affection, too, for when she told him, one night, that he needn’t do it, as we were late in returning from Pocahontas, I remember the fervor with which he responded: ‘Oh, yes, Miss Dorothy, I’ll do de mar’ up in watered silk style tonight cause yar’s a gwine to Branton fer a dinin’ day tomorrer, an’ Ben ain’t a gwine fer to let his little Missus ride in anything but de bes’ o’ style.’ The fact is,” continued Arthur, reflecting, “these people understand Dorothy. They know that she is always kindly, always compassionate, always sympathetic in her dealings with them. But they realize that she is also always just. She never grows angry. She never scolds. She punishes a fault severely in her queer way, but after it is punished she never refers to it again. She never ‘throws up things,’ to them. In a word, Dorothy is just, and after all it is justice that human beings most want, and it is the one thing of which they get least in this world. What a girl Dorothy is, anyhow!” XIII THE “SONG BALLADS” OF DICK _I_t was “endurin of de feveh”--to use his own phrase by which he meant during the fever--that Dick’s genius revealed itself. Dick had long ago achieved the coveted dignity of being his master’s “pussonal servant.” It was Dorothy who appointed him to that position and it was mainly Dorothy who directed his service and saw to it that he did not neglect it. For many of the services of a valet, Arthur had no use whatever. It was his habit, as he had long ago said, to “tie his own shoe strings.” He refused from the first very many of Dick’s proffered attentions. But he liked to have his boots thoroughly polished and his clothing well brushed. These things he allowed Dick to attend to. For the rest he made small use of him except to send him on errands.