I remember my mammy well, though she died when I was a child. Her name was Lydia, and she was the daughter of old Betty, who had been my great-grandmother’s maid. Betty used to read to her mistress during the latter years of her life when she was blind. Lydia had been my mother’s mammy before she was mine and my brother’s, and she had the authority and prestige of having been such. After forty-five years, I recall with mingled affection and awe my mammy’s dignity, force, and kindness; her snowy bed, where I was put to sleep in the little up-stairs room, sealed with pictures from the illustrated papers and with fashion-plates, in which her artistic feeling found its vent; I recall also the delicious “biscuit-bread” she made, which we thought better than that of all the cooks and bakers in the world. In one corner stood her tea-table, with her “tea-things,” her tea and white sugar. I remember, too, the exercise of her authority, and recall, at least two “good whippings” that she gave me. One curious recollection that remains is of a discussion between her and one of her young mistresses on the subject of slavery, in which the latter fell back on what is, possibly, one of the strongest arguments of the slave-holder, the Bible, and asserted that God had put each of them in their places. It may be left to the reader to say which had the better of the argument. The interest of the matter now is rather academic than practical. A few days before my mammy’s death she made her will, dividing her “things,” for such wills were as strictly observed as if they had been admitted to probate. Among her bequests her feather-bed and pillows were left to my elder brother. She made my mother bring a pen and write his name on the bed and pillows. And these pillows are now in his rectory. It was from our mammies that we learned those delightful stories of “Brer Fox” and “Brer Hyah,” which the children of a later generation have learned through the magic pen of “Uncle Remus.” It was from them also that we learned many of the lessons of morality and truth. Next to the mammy in point of dignity was, of right, the butler. He held much the same position that is held by the butler in English houses. He was a person in authority, and he looked that every inch. He had his ideas, and they usually prevailed. He was the governor of the young children, the mentor of the young men, and their counsellor even after they had grown up. Some of my readers may have seen in some hotel a Negro head-waiter who was a model of dignity and of grave authority—a field-marshal in ebony—doing the honors of his dining-room like a court chamberlain, and ruling his subordinates with the authority of a benignant despot. Such a one was probably some gentleman’s butler, who had risen by his abilities to be the chief of the dining-room.