"Are you sure they ain't among the vegetables?" I asked. "I saw them put in myself." "Huh! en you seed 'em fall out, too, I lay!" rejoined the negress, protruding her thick red lips as she turned the basket upside down with an indignant blow. "If they're lost, I'll go back and bring others," I said, thinking disconsolately of the hill. "En you 'ould be back hyer agin in time fur supper," retorted the outraged divinity. "Wat you reckon Miss Mitty wants wid car'ots fur 'er supper? Dey is hern, dey ain' mine, but ef'n dey 'us mine I'd lamn you twel you couldn't see ter set. Hit's bad enough ter hev ter live erlong in de same worl' wid de slue-footed po' white trash widout hevin' dem a-snatchin' de car'ots outer yo' ve'y mouf." My temper, never of the mildest, was stung quickly to a retort, and I was about to order her to hold her tongue and return me my basket, when the door into the house opened and shut, and the little girl of the enchanted garden appeared in the flesh before me. "I want the plum cake you promised me, Aunt Mirabella," she cried; "and oh! I hope you've stuffed it full of plums!" Then her glance fell upon me and I saw her thick black eyebrows arch merrily over her sparkling grey eyes. "It's my boy! My dear common boy!" she exclaimed, with a rush toward me. For the first time I noticed then that she was dressed in mourning, and that her black clothes intensified the dark brightness of her look. "Oh, I _am_ glad to see you," she added, seizing my hand. I gazed up at her, wounded rather than pleased. "I shan't be a common boy always," I answered. "Do you mind my calling you one? If you do, I won't," she said, and without waiting a minute, "What are you doing here? I thought you lived over on Church Hill." "I don't now. Ma died and I ran away." "My mother died, too," she returned softly, "and then grandmama." For a moment there was a pause. Then I said with a kind of stubborn pride, "I ran away." The sadness passed from her and she turned on me in a glow of animation. "Oh, I should just love dearly to run away!" she exclaimed. "You couldn't. You're a girl." "I could, too, if I chose." "Then why don't you choose?" "Because of Aunt Mitty and Aunt Matoaca. They haven't anybody but me." "I left my father," I replied proudly, "and I didn't care one single bit. That's the trouble with girls. They're always caring." "Well, I'm not caring for you," she retorted with crushing effect, shaking back the soft cloud of hair on her shoulders. "Boys don't care," I rejoined with indifference, taking up my market basket. She detained me with a glance. "There's one thing they care about--dreadfully," she said. "No, there ain't." Without replying in words she went over to the stove, and standing on tiptoe, gingerly removed a hot plum cake, small and round and shaped like a muffin, from the smoking oven. "I reckon they care about plum cake," she remarked tauntingly, and as she held it toward me it smelt divinely.