"Yes, one," the Bishop answered, "a little girl. She died three years ago. Demming was devotedly attached to her. He can't talk of her now without the tears coming to his eyes. He really," said the Bishop, meditatively, "seemed more affected when he told me about her death than he was yesterday. She died of some kind of low fever, and was ill a long time. He used to walk up and down the little path through the woods, holding her in his arms. She would wake up in the night and cry, and he would wrap her in an old army blanket, and pace in front of the house for hours. Often the teamsters driving into town at break of day, with their loads of wood, would come on him thus, walking and talking to the child, with the little thin face on his shoulder, and the ragged blanket trailing on the ground. Ah, Demming is not altogether abandoned, he has an affectionate heart!" Neither of his listeners made any response. Talboys, because of his slender faith in Demming; Louise, because she was thinking that if the Aiken laundresses were intrusted with her father's lawn many more times there would be nothing left to darn. They went on silently, therefore, until the Bishop said, in a low voice, "Here we are!" The negro driver, with the agility of a country coachman, had already sprung to the ground, and was holding the carriage door open. Before them lay a small cleared tract of land, where a pleasant greenness of young potato vines hid the sand. In the centre was a tumble-down cabin, with a mud chimney on the outside. The one window had no sash, and its rude shutter hung precariously by a single leathern hinge. The door was open, revealing that the interior was papered with newspapers. Three or four yelping curs seemed to be all the furniture. There was nothing extraordinary in the picture; one could see fifty such cabins, in a radius of half a mile. Nor was there anything of mark in the appearance of Demming himself, dressed exactly as he was the day before, and rubbing his eyes in the doorway. But behind him! The coachman's under jaw dropped beneath the weight of a loud "Fo' de Lawd!" The Bishop's benignant countenance was suddenly crimsoned. Talboys and Louise looked at each other, and bit their lips. It was only a woman,--a tall, thin, bent woman in a shabby print gown, with a faded sunbonnet pushed back from her gray head and a common clay pipe between her lips. Probably in her youth she had been a pretty woman, and the worn features and dim eyes still retained something engaging in their expression of timid good-will. "Won' you all step in?" she said, advancing. "Yes, yes," added Demming, inclining his body and waving both hands with magnificent courtesy; "alight, gen'lemen, alight! I'm sorry I ain't no staggah juice to offah ye, but yo' right welcome to sweet potatoes an' pussimmon beah, w'ich's all--" "Demming," said the Bishop, sternly, "what does this mean? I came to bury Mrs. Demming, and--and here she is!"