"Aunty," said the mother calmly, "I am dying. Let me see my child and kiss her. Then put her next my heart till it is cold." Mrs. Hunter lifted her startled eyes to the physician, who sadly nodded his head in acquiescence. In a few moments more the broken heart found healing far beyond all human passion and strife. With hot, yet tearless eyes, and a face that appeared to be chiselled from marble in its whiteness and rigidity, the aunt took up the child. Her tone revealed the indescribable intensity of her feelings as she said, "Thy name is Mara--bitterness." CHAPTER III UNCLE SHEBA'S EXPERIENCE Many years have elapsed since the events narrated in the last chapter occurred, and the thread of story is taken up again in the winter of 1886. In a small dwelling, scarcely more than a cabin, and facing on an obscure alley in Charleston, a rotund colored woman of uncertain age is sitting by the fire with her husband. She is a well-known character in the city, for she earns her bread by selling cakes, fruits, and other light articles which may be vended in the street with chances of profit. Although "Aun' Sheba," as she was familiarly called, had received no training for mercantile pursuits, yet her native shrewdness had enabled her to hit upon the principles of success, as may be discovered by the reader as the story progresses. She had always been so emphatically the master of the house and the head of the family, that her husband went by the name of "Uncle Sheba." It must be admitted that the wife shared in the popular opinion of her husband. When in an amiable mood, which, happily, was her usual condition of mind, she addressed him as "Unc.;" when some of his many short-comings exhausted her good-nature--for Aun' Sheba had more good-nature than patience--he was severely characterized as "Mr. Buggone." Since they had been brought up in Major Burgoyne's family, they felt entitled to his surname, and by evolution it had become "Buggone." Uncle Sheba's heart failed him when his wife addressed him by this title, for he knew he was beyond the dead line of safety. They dwelt alone in the cabin, their several children, with one exception, having been scattered they knew not where. Adjacent was another cabin, owned by a son-in-law, named Kern Watson, who had married their youngest daughter years before, and he was the pride of Aun' Sheba's heart. Uncle Sheba felt that he was not appreciated, or perhaps appreciated too well, by his son-in-law, and their intercourse was rather formal.