"I was interrupted yesterday, and hardly know where to begin again, or what I have written, as Jake was a little mixed and went forward and back at times, showing that his memory was, as he said, leaky, but when he struck the child he was bright as a guinea. 'Lil Chile' and 'Honey Bee' he calls her. He told me of her running into the house to meet the Colonel, with her soiled frock, and her face and hands besmeared with molasses; of her tussle with Mandy Ann, who wanted to wash her face and change her clothes, and of her fine appearance at the last in a white gown, her best, which he had bought and Mandy Ann made not long before, and which the Colonel would not take with him. So they kept it, and Mandy Ann washed and ironed it, and put it away with some sweet herbs, and aired it every year till she was married, when Jake cared for it till Mandy Ann's twins were born,--Alex and Aaron. Then Mandy Ann borrowed it for them to be christened in, one of them one Sunday and one the next, so that both had the honor of wearing it, while Jake was sponsor, 'For,' said he, 'Mandy Ann has gin up them hollerin' meetin's whar white folks done come to see de ole darkies have a kind of powow, as dey use to have befo' de wah. Clar for't if de folks from de Norf don't gin de blacks money to sing de ole-time songs an' rock an' weave back an' forth till dey have de pow'. I don't think much of dat ar, jess 'musin' theyselves wid our religion;' and Jake looked his disgust, and continued: "'Mandy Ann like mighty well to jine 'em, but I hole her back, an' now she's 'Piscopal, ef she's anything,--an' when de girl twins come,--Dory an' Judy,--she borrowed lil chile's gown agin. Dat make fo' times, an' then I shet de gates, an' said, "No mo' gown, an' no mo' twins," an' thar hain't been no mo'.