Sometimes at night Mrs. Buford and her niece sang together the songs of the old South, Mary Ellen furnishing accompaniment with her guitar. They sang together, here beneath the surface of this sweeping sea of land, out over which the red eye of their home looked wonderingly. And sometimes Mary Ellen sang to her guitar alone, too often songs which carried her back to a morbid, mental state, from which not even the high voice of this glad, new land could challenge her. Very far away to her seemed even the graves of Louisburg. Father, mother, brothers, lover, every kin of earth nearest to her, had not death claimed them all? What was there left, what was there to be hoped here, cast away on this sea of land, this country that could never be a land of homes? Sad doctrine, this, for a young woman in her early twenties, five feet five, with the peach on her cheek in spite of the burning wind, and hands that reached out for every little ailing chicken, for every kitten, or puppy that wanted comforting. But when the morning came and the sun rose, and the blue sky smiled, and all the earth seemed to be vibrant with some high-keyed summoning note--how difficult then it was to be sad! How far away indeed seemed the once-familiar scenes! How hard it was not to hope, here in this land of self-reliance and belief! It was the horror of Mary Ellen's soul that when this sun shone she could not be sad. This land, this crude, forbidding, fascinating land--what was there about it that swept her along against her will? CHAPTER XXI THE ADVICE OF AUNT LUCY One day Aunt Lucy, missing Quarterly Meeting, and eke bethinking herself of some of those aches and pains of body and forebodings of mind with which the negro is never unprovided, became mournful in her melody, and went to bed sighing and disconsolate. Mary Ellen heard her voice uplifted long and urgently, and suspecting the cause, at length went to her door. "What is it, Aunt Lucy?" she asked kindly. "Nothin', mam; I jess rasslin' wit ther throne o' Grace er l'il bit. I don't wan' to 'sturb you-all." "We don't want to disturb you, either, Aunt Lucy," said Mary Ellen gently. "Thass hit, Miss Ma'y Ellen, thass _hit_! It ain't fitten fer a ole nigger 'ooman to be prayin' erroun' whah white folks is. You kain't seem to let out good an' free; 'n ef I kain't let out good an' free, 'pears like I don't git no hol' on salvation. We all po' weak sinners, Miss Ma'y Ellen." "Yes, I know, Lucy." "An' does you know, Miss Ma'y Ellen, I sorter gits skeered sometimes, out yer, fer fear mer supplercashuns ain't goin' take holt o' heaven jess right. White folks has one way er prayin', but er nigger kain't pray erlone--no, mam, jess kain't pray erlone." "I thought you were doing pretty well, Lucy."