"No, you don't," said Garda, laughing. "You're as good as gold, Margaret, but you don't really like to go, you don't really like the negroes, personally, one bit. You would do anything in the world for them, give them all your money and all your time, teach school for them, make clothes for them, and I don't know what all; but you would never understand them though you should live among them all the rest of your life, and never see a white face again. Now _I_ wouldn't take one grain of the trouble for them that you would, because I don't think it's in the least necessary. But, personally, I _like_ them, I like to have them about, talk to them and hear them talk; I am really attached to all the old servants about here. And I venture to say, too, that they would all prefer me forever, though I didn't lift a finger for them, prefer me to you, no matter what sacrifices you might make to help them, because they would see and feel that _I_ really liked them, whereas _you_ didn't. But I really think you like to be busy just for the sake of it; when there's nothing else you can do, you go tramping all over the country until I should think your feet would spread out like a duck's. I should like to know when you have given yourself an hour or two of absolute rest--such as I am taking now?" "I can't sleep in the daytime," was Margaret's answer to this general southern remonstrance; "and a duck's feet are very useful to the duck." "Oh, of course I know your feet are lovely. But I shouldn't think they could stay so, long." "There seems to be no end at least to _your_ powers of 'staying so,' especially when you get into a hammock," remarked Margaret. But she spoke with a smile on her lips, she was well satisfied to see the girl swinging there contentedly, her eyes already misty with sleep. "Good-by," she said, closing the door. Then she put on her hat and gloves, and started on her mission. The sick child, for whom Dr. Kirby had prepared the medicine, lived in a cabin two miles and a half from East Angels, on the barren. In addition to the taste for unnecessary philanthropy which Garda had attributed to her, as well as that for unnecessary exercise, Margaret appeared to have a taste for solitude: she generally took her long walks alone. That is, she took them whenever she had the opportunity. This was not so often as it might have been, because of Aunt Katrina's little wishes, which had a habit of ramifying through all the hours of the day. It was not that Aunt Katrina expected you to occupy yourself in her behalf the whole afternoon, she would have exclaimed at the idea that she made such exactions as that; she only wished you to do some one little thing for her at two; and then something else "a little before three;" and then again possibly she might "feel like" this or that later, say, "any time" (liberally) "between half-past four and five." In this way she was sure that you had almost the whole time to yourself.