"I want to leave ye well fixed," he said. "Leave me?" she echoed. He made a hurried effort to soften the words. "I'd oughtn't to said it," he said. "It was kinder keerless. Thet thar--it's a long way off--mebbe--an' I'd oughtn't to hev said it. It's a way old folks hev--but it's a bad way. Things git to seem sorter near to 'em--an' ordinary." The whole day had been to Louisiana a slow approach to a climax. Sometimes when her father talked she could scarcely bear to look at his face as the firelight shone on it. So, when she had bidden him good-night at last and walked to the door leaving him standing upon the hearth watching her as she moved away, she turned round suddenly and faced him again, with her hand upon the latch. "Father," she cried, "I want to tell you--I want to tell you----" "What?" he said. "What, Louisianny?" She put her hand to her side and leaned against the door--a slender, piteous figure. "Don't look at me kindly," she said. "I don't deserve it. I deserve nothing. I have been ashamed----" He stopped her, putting up his shaking hand and turning pale. "Don't say nothin' as ye'll be sorry fer when ye feel better, Louisianny," he said. "Don't git carried away by yer feelin's into sayin' nothin' es is hard on yerself. Don't ye do it, Louisianny. Thar aint no need fer it, honey. Yer kinder wrought up, now, an' ye cayn't do yerself jestice." But she would not be restrained. "I _must_ tell you," she said. "It has been on my heart too long. I ought never to have gone away. Everybody was different from us--and had new ways. I think they laughed at me, and it made me bad. I began to ponder over things until at last I hated myself and everything, and was ashamed that I had been content. When I told you I wanted to play a joke on the people who came here, it was not true. I wanted them to go away without knowing that this was my home. It was only a queer place, to be laughed at, to them, and I was ashamed of it, and bitter and angry. When they went into the parlor they laughed at it and at the pictures, and everything in it, and I stood by with my cheeks burning. When I saw a strange woman in the kitchen it flashed into my mind that I had no need to tell them that all these things that they laughed at had been round me all my life. They were not sneering at them--it was worse than that--they were only interested and amused and curious, and were not afraid to let me see. The--gentleman had been led by his sister to think I came from some city. He thought I was--was pretty and educated,--his equal, and I knew how amazed he would be and how he would say he could not believe that I had lived here, and wonder at me and talk me over. And I could not bear it. I only wanted him to go away without knowing, and never, never see me again!" Remembering the pain and fever and humiliation of the past, and of that dreadful day above all, she burst into sobbing.