Years came and went as years will do, some three or four or five; and after a time the blue-coats vanished from the city, martial music was no more heard, and the forts crowning the beautiful hills and all the barracks about them became deserted and silent. Still the school in the hospital buildings continued and increased in prosperity, and still the years rolled on, fourteen of them, and even the hospital buildings became deserted, for the Freedmen’s school had long since outgrown its quarters, and from one of the beautiful hills it proudly and peacefully looks down upon the city, that proudly and in peace gazes up to it. On a day when the Southern sunshine was brightest, one of the professors, on his way to the University, was stopped by an aged colored woman, bowed over on a walking-stick, and hobbling to meet him. “Howdy,” said she, “is you de teacher up yonder?” and she pointed to the stately hall. “Yes, auntie,” he replied with a smile. “Can I do anything for you?” “Reckon you don’t ’member Paulphemie Watkins?”—and as she spoke the name, her voice grew even more tremulous. The professor regretfully said he did not recall her. “I ’spects you doesn’t,” added the old auntie. “Well, down yonder, sah, when dis yere school was a baby, you know, down yonder in de guv’ment buildings, my Paulphemie went to your paid school; she got religion thar, and—and (wiping slowly her eyes) she done got de _choleray_ and done died, nigh on ter fourteen year ago now, sah. Praise de Lord! she got religion, and she gone home ter glory!” And then the poor old thing, after placing her walking-stick so that she could safely lean on it and have her hands free, removed from her bosom a handkerchief, and with trembling fingers untied a knot in one corner; then she placed in the professor’s hand, counting them out one by one, six silver dollars. “For my Paulphemie’s larnin’, sah. I couldn’t pay it sooner, sah; but, sure ’nough, its done laid like a stone right here all dese yere years,” she said, putting her hand on her heart. "I prayed de Lord an’ I said, O! good Lord, don’t lemme come home to glory till I done paid for Paulphemie’s larnin’! It’s a pretty day, sah; I lives a right smart o’ way yonder, an’ my ole feet don’t go fast, so good evening."[A] With those words she would have gone. The professor’s eyes were moist, and he had hardly spoken, so strange had been the scene, but now he followed her, begging her gently to keep the money. With pride and almost anger she refused, and after learning where her home was, he was obliged to let her go, contenting himself with a plan to fully make up to her in some way the sum she had left in his hands. Walking slowly and thoughtfully toward the University, he seemed to hear not “the still, sad music of humanity;” for how could he dare to _pity_ a soul so noble? But an angel’s plaudit spoke for her, “She hath done what she could.” FOOTNOTE: