“I know what you think,” said John Jr. rather testily, “but hang me if I can help it. Meb was never intended for me, except by mother. I suppose there is in the world somebody for whom she was made, but it wasn’t I, and that’s the reason she died. I am sorry as anybody, and every night in my life I think of poor Meb, who loved me so well, and who met with so poor a return. I’ve bought her some gravestones, though,” he continued, as if that were an ample atonement for the past. While they were thus occupied, Mr. Graham was discussing with Mrs. Nichols the propriety of her removing to Woodlawn. “I shan’t live long to trouble anybody,” said she when asked if she would like to go, “and I’m nothin’ without ’Leny.” So it was arranged that she should go with him, and when ’Lena returned to the house, she found her grandmother in her chamber, packing up, preparatory to her departure. “We’ll have to come agin,” said she, “for I’ve as much as two loads.” “Don’t take them,” interposed ’Lena. “You won’t need them, and nothing will harm them here.” After a little, grandma was persuaded, and her last charge to Mrs. Livingstone and Carrie was, “that they keep the dum niggers from her things.” Habit with Mrs. Nichols was everything. She had lived at Maple Grove for years, and every niche and corner of her room she understood. She knew the blacks and they knew her, and ere she was half-way to Woodlawn, she began to wish she had not started. Politely, but coldly, Mrs. Graham received her, saying “I thought, perhaps, you would return with them to _spend the day_!” laying great emphasis on the last words, as if that, of course, was to be the limit of her visit Grandma understood it, and it strengthened her resolution of not remaining long. “Miss Graham don’t want to be pestered with me,” said she to ’Lena, the first time they were alone, “and I don’t mean that she shall be. ’Tilda is used to me, and she don’t mind it now, so I shall go back afore long. You can come to see me every day, and once in a while I’ll come here.” That afternoon a heavy rain came on, and Mrs. Graham remarked to Mrs. Nichols that “she hoped she was not homesick, as there was every probability of her being obliged to _stay over night_!” adding, by way of comfort, that “she was going to Frankfort the next day to make purchases for ’Lena, and would take her home.” Accordingly, the next morning Mrs. Livingstone was not very agreeably surprised by the return of her mother-in-law, who, Mrs. Graham said, “was so home-sick they couldn’t keep her.”