"Venus must take the thing home," said Mrs. Gano, eying the wailing one with coldness. "Oh, grandmamma!" There bade fair to be a duet of lamentation. "It will die if it's left here." "No, no; I'll take care of it." He clasped it fondly. "We don't know what to do for such a young creature." "Oh yes, we do," interrupted Ethan. He came nearer, notwithstanding Mrs. Gano's edging away from her grimy descendant, and from the small, wailing, trembling, clawing object on his breast. The child took hold of her gown, and said, with ingratiating, upturned, face, "Dear grandmamma, _couldn't_ we buy it a cow?" The suggestion apparently pleased his unaccountable grandmother too well for her to persist in banishing the kitten. So "Duchess May," as Ethan insisted on calling her, became an acknowledged member of the sooty circle in the kitchen, and was well and safely brought up without the immediate superintendence of a cow. Mrs. Gano's refusal to admit the Duchess to other parts of the house resulted in Ethan's spending a good deal of his time, too, in Aunt Jerusha's society. She turned out to be a most interesting and accomplished person. No wonder his father had thought well of her, but as to--no, he never, never could have kissed her! Aunt Jerusha sang the most wonderful songs. The words were not very intelligible for the most part, but that didn't matter: the effect was all the more exciting and mysterious. There was one monotonous chant she used solemnly to give forth when she was polishing the dining-room table--something about "... de body ob de Lawd. An' dat was wot He meant W'en He said He'd brought a sword, An' no mo' peace on de earf!" Then a string of undistinguishable words, ending with something like-- "Oh, mighty keerful All roun' de body ob de Lawd, We done been a wrappin' A w'ite linen napkin All round de body ob de Lawd. He said He'd bring a sword, An' no mo' peace on de earf!" There was a wild melancholy in the air that made the child's heart tremble in his breast. Particularly on wet days, when he couldn't go down into the wilderness, he used to stand in the doorway with the Duchess in his arms, listening with all his ears. "An' Jerusha," he said, one morning during a thunderstorm, when she polished the oak in persistent silence, "why don't you sing? Grandmamma can't hear." "No, Massa Efan, not to-day." "Why not? This is just the day to, when the rain's makin' such a noise you can sing as loud as you like." "Yo' won't nebber ketch dis nigger raisin' no chunes on de twenty-firs' ob July." "Why not?" "Don' you know, little massa, dis de day yo' fader died?" "Oh-h, is it?" A silence of some moments, broken only by the dash of summer rain against the window-pane. "Did you know my father when he was quite little?"