Miss Welch, on her arrival at home that evening, was in a singular frame of mind, and was as nearly at war with everyone as it is possible for a really sweet-tempered girl to be. Dr. Washington Still had called in her absence and proffered his professional services for any of her patients. She broke out against him vehemently, and when her mother, who was in a mollified state of mind toward the young man, undertook to defend him, Ruth attacked the whole Still family—and connections—except Virgy, whom she admitted to be a poor little kind-hearted thing, and shocked her mother by denouncing warmly the stories of the Ku Klux outrages and declaring openly that she did not believe there had ever been any Ku Klux in the County, except on the one occasion when they had disarmed the negro militia—and that she thought they had done exactly right, and just what she would have had them do. Mrs. Welch was too much shocked to do anything but gasp. “Oh! Ruth, Ruth,” she groaned. “That ever my daughter should say such things!” But Miss Ruth was too excited for control just then. She launched out yet more warmly and shocked her mother by yet more heretical views, until suddenly, moved by her mother’s real pain, she flung herself into her arms in a passion of remorse and tears, and declared that she did not mean half of what she had said, but was a wicked, bad girl who did not appreciate the best and kindest of mothers. A few days afterward, the man known as the trick-doctor, who called himself “Doctor Moses,” came to Major Welch’s and told a pitiful story of an old woman’s poverty. Mrs. Welch gave him some sugar, coffee, and other things for her, but he asked the ladies to go and see her. She lived “all by herself, mostly, and hones to see the good white folks,” he said. “Ef my young Mistis would be so kind as to go and see her some evenin’ I will show her de way.” He looked at Ruth, with a low bow and that smile and uneasy look which always reminded her of a hyena in a cage. They promised to go immediately, and he undertook to describe the road to them. It was too bad to drive a carriage over—you had to ride on horseback; but his young Mistress would find it, she was such a good rider.