"Me's Dory. Shaky and Mandy Ann calls me Dory," she would say, with a stamp of her foot, refusing to answer to any name but Dory, which came at last to be Dora as she grew older. She learned to read in the new school-house by the south gate of the park, and when she heard that the Colonel built it, she called it hers, and queened it over her companions with an imperiousness worthy of the Colonel himself. When questioned of her old home her answers were vague. There was a river somewhere, and her mother was sick, and she reckoned she had no father but Shaky. As she grew older, she became very reticent of her past, and, if she remembered it at all, she held her tongue, like Peter. Once, when she was more than usually aggressive, claiming not only the school-house but everything in and around it, she was told by the children that she lived with niggers till she came to Crompton Place, and they guessed her mother was one, and nobody knew anything about her anyway. There was a fierce fight in which Dora came off victorious, with a scratch or two on her face and a torn dress. That afternoon the Colonel was confronted by what seemed a little maniac, demanding to know if her mother was black, and if she had lived only with negroes until she came to Crompton. "No, to both questions, and never let me hear another word on the subject as long as you live," was the Colonel's answer, given with a sternness before which the girl always quailed. She was afraid of the Colonel, and kept aloof from him as much as possible, rarely seeing him except at meal times, and then saying very little to him and never dreaming how closely he watched her, attributing every pecularity, and she had many, to the Harris taint, of which he had a mortal terror. But however much or little there might have been of the Harris blood in her, the few who knew her found her charming, as she grew from childhood into a beautiful girl of eighteen, apparently forgetful of everything pertaining to her Florida home. The doll-house, with all the expensive toys bought for her, had been banished to a room in the attic, and with them finally went Judy and Mandy Ann. The red cloak she seemed to prize more than all her possessions. It was more in keeping with her surroundings than Judy, and she often wrapped it around her as she sat upon the piazza, when the day was cool, and sometimes wore it on her shoulders to breakfast in the morning. Once she asked the Colonel where it came from, and he answered "Savannah," and went on reading his paper with a scowl on his forehead which warned her she was on dangerous ground. He was not fond of questions, and she did not often trouble him with them, but lived her silent life, increasing in beauty with every year, and guarded so closely from contact with the outer world that she scarcely had an intimate acquaintance.