"Kitty," rejoined Regnan, "will you always remember to bring bad news?" "Out with you, Regnan." "Be lovely to-day, Kitty." "The bottom of your foot is clean." "That tickles! That tickles, Kitty!" "Your big toe is a good door-knob." "Oh, Kitty." "Out, Regnan!" "'Tis better to stand on two feet than to lose one big toe. I love you, Kitty." "The way you stand such treatment shows it. A true lover is the old man who enjoys the whims of an old wife." "You are a young wife to-day." "A good breakfast, a hard day's work and the ceremony to-night! I'll warrant that you'll outshine the preacher, Regnan." Regnan and Kitty were good, religious people. They took pride in the fact that they divided their religious duties. He prayed night and morning. She said the blessing at all times. She gathered the moral and religious news of the neighborhood, and he discussed it for their own benefit. At these functions Kitty was Kitty and Regnan was Regnan. Joking and arguing always found other means of outlet. "Let us be serious, Kitty." She looked at him and nodded her haid. "Let us pray." They knelt and prayed. He prayed aloud, and she silently. His "amen" seemed to be a link connecting the past and the present. So much for a beautiful human picture. Regnan, his wife, and friends were negroes. He dealt in rags, old iron, and second-hand furniture. Kitty was a plain housewife. "I'll have a breakfast like the one we ate twenty-five years ago, husband." "Do, wife! I'll give Posey a good currying-ing." "Do, husband!" Kitty set about getting breakfast, and Regnan curried Posey. Kitty talked to the pancakes, and Regnan talked to Posey. "I would not burn a pancake on my husband's wedding day. Now, cakes, turn well!" "I would not slight you, Posey, on my wife's wedding day. Now, Posey, shining Posey, see yourself!" When Regnan and Kitty sat down to breakfast, Posey, hitched to the wagon, was standing with her head partly in the window. A pancake was passed to the plates of Regnan and Kitty, and one to the mouth of Posey. When breakfast was over Regnan kissed Kitty, patted Posey, and drove off, saying: "Nordad the tinker comes ever to my mind. I wonder what to-day will bring. I will prepare for to-night." Regnan had a district where he bought and sold. He was regular, honest, and good-natured; and therefore popular. His "rag-cry" was his own. It always brought trade. It ran something like this: "_R-a-g-s_, rags, rags, _r-a-g-s_! Any _r-a-g-s_, _o-l-d iron_? Come up, Posey! _R-a-g-s_, old iron!" This cry had brought a little fortune. As this was his anniversary he thought he would not buy any rags, but deal in other things.