But to return. Oh how inexpressibly mournful were their chants that night! I remember one especially. It began with a wailing recitative--a prolonged, mournful recitative in the minor key by female voices only, and at its close the men joined them in a full, deep chorus, slow and solemn, the last words of which were "Dead and gone!" The black ravine took up the sound, and from its deep, mysterious heart came back the solemn echo, "Dead and gone!" It was simply horrible. I never felt so homesick in my life; and as the mournful chant rolled toward the mountain, and then came floating back again like a corpse upon the ebbing tide, I leaned my head upon the window-sill and cried heartily. One by one my friends died and were buried, my children became orphans, and, by a curious freak of circumstances, their father and I were left to a childless old age. All possible accidents were put in requisition, all manner of possible misfortunes called upon to contribute their quota of woe. Then I fell to wondering how people could like to sing mournful things and make themselves and other people miserable; and that made me think of what negroes liked, and that naturally led to watermelons; so I dried my eyes and summoned my maid: "Betty, what is it they are singing about? Is anybody dead?" "It's de las' en' of a funerul, I b'lieve, m'm--somebody whar dey didn't git done preachin' over him, 'count of a storm." "Betty, the singing does make me feel so badly. Just step over and say I will send them a barrel of watermelons and cantaloupes, and those Mrs. Brown sent me too, if they will get up a dance or make any kind of cheerful noise. There is a tambourine among the children's toys: you can beat it as you go." Betty laughed, and went over. There was a pause in the singing: then I heard a man's voice: "Go 'way wid dat fool talk! Whar she gwine git watermillions an' mushmillions by de bar'l, an' dey ain't more'n fa'rly ripe?" "Mr. Smith sent 'em from de city," simpered Betty, who liked to put on airs with the country-folk; "an' Mrs. Brown, of your nabority, reposed her some to-day." "Dat's so 'bout dem from town, 'cos I helped to tote 'em up to de house," said another. "Huk kum she ain't et 'em?" "The baby conwulshed, an' Mrs. Smith's mind disbegaged of de melons," replied Betty. "Huk kum he sen' so many?" asked the first speaker, who appeared to be business-manager, and duly afraid of being swindled--fervid in fair speech, and correspondingly suspicious. "His wife mus' be a mons'ous hearty 'ooman!" "He knowed she were goin' to resperse 'em to her village fren's too, of course. Which we all know dere ain't no place where you carn't" (Betty was from Cumberland county, and pronounced the _a_ broad, to the envious disgust of the Rockbridge darkies) "git fruit like you carn't git it in the country. It is always five miles off, an' de han's is busy, or de creek is riz an' you carn't cross it."