This she said many times to her young mistress, keeping her spirits up, helping her to hope against hope, while the seasons came and went, and letters were sometimes received or sent, first to Tom Hardy and forwarded by him either to the North or to Eudora. There was no lack of money, but this was not what the young girl wanted. Mandy Ann had said she had not much _sperrit_, and she certainly had not enough to claim her rights, but clung to a morbid fancy of what was her duty, bearing up bravely for a long time, trying to learn, trying to read the books recommended to her in her Northern letters, and sent for by Jake to Palatka, trying to understand what she read, and, most pitiful of all, trying to be a lady, fashioned after her own ideas, and those of Jake and Mandy Ann. Jake told her what he had seen the quality do in Richmond, while Mandy Ann boasted her superior knowledge, because of her three months with Miss Perkins's in Jacksonville, and rehearsed many times the way she had seen young ladies "come into de house, shake han's an' say how d'ye, an' hole' thar kyard cases so" (illustrating with a bit of block), "an' thar parasols so" (taking up granny's cane), "an' set on the aidge of thar char straight up, an' Miss Perkins bowin' an' smilin' an' sayin' how glad she was to see 'em, an' den when dey's gone sayin' sometimes, 'I wonder what sent 'em hyar to-day, when it's so powerful hot, an' I wants to take my sester'--dat's her nap, you know, after dinner, what plenty ladies take--an' den you mus' sometimes speak sharp like to Jake an' to me, an' not be so soff spoken, as if we wasn't yer niggers, 'case we are, or I is, an' does a heap o' badness; an' you orto pull my har f'or it." Confused and bewildered Eudora listened, first to Jake and then to Mandy Ann, but as she had no card case, no parasol, and no ladies called upon her, she could only try to remember the proper thing to do when the time came, if it ever did. But she lost heart at last. She was deserted. There was no need for her to try to be a lady. Her life was slipping away, but for baby there was hope, and many times in her chamber loft, when Mandy Ann thought she was taking her _sester_, and so far imitating "de quality," she was praying that when she was dead, as she felt she soon would be, her little child might be recognized and taken where she rightfully belonged. And so the years went on till more than three were gone since the stranger came on the "Hatty," and one morning when she lay again at the wharf, and Mandy Ann came down for something ordered from Palatka, her eyes were swollen with crying, and when Ted began his chaff she answered, "Doan't, Teddy, doan't. I can't fought you now, nor sass you back, 'case Miss Dory is dead, an' Jake's done gone for de minister." CHAPTER V MISS DORY