“No, sah, cose not Marse John--I know how tis ’my sef’--de course er true love ain’t run smooth wid me nuther.” “Quick, now, don’t you lose a minute.” John returned to his office to await with impatience the word that would mean the beginning of a new chapter in his life. Alfred placed the note carefully under his hat and hastened to the Judge’s, laughing and chuckling to himself. For reasons best known to himself he entered by the carriage way. At the wide double gate still stood the old lodge-keeper’s cottage, a relic of the slave regime. In the cottage Aunt Julie Ann lived with Uncle Isaac, her latest husband. Alfred had once been honoured with that relationship before the war, but Isaac had whipped him and taken Aunt Julie Ann by force of arms. Alfred was much the larger man of the two, tall, awkward and slow of movement, while Isaac was small and active as a cat. The agility of his movements had swept Aunt Julie Ann’s imagination by storm. The contrast to her own three hundred pounds had no doubt been the secret charm. She had loudly professed her love for Alfred until she saw Isaac thrash him, and without a word she surrendered to the new lord and refused to recognise her former husband. This happened two years before the war and Alfred had watched and waited the day of his revenge to dawn. Many a night he had prowled around her cottage spying and listening at the keyhole for her cry of help. He had heard at last that Isaac was beating her unmercifully and he chuckled with grim satisfaction. Every opportunity he got he hung around the cottage and listened for the long expected cry. As he approached the gates this morning in a peculiarly romantic frame of mind, remembering the mission he was on, he heard Uncle Isaac’s voice in sharp accents within, hectoring it over his former spouse. He crept to the door and listened breathlessly. “Dar now, I’se jes’ in time ter sabe my lady love!” He peeped cautiously through the keyhole and saw Aunt Julie Ann’s huge form busy at the ironing board, while Isaac sat majestically in a rocker delivering to her an eloquent discourse on Sanctification in general and his own sinless perfection in particular. Isaac had changed his name several times after the war, following the example of many Negroes who were afraid the use of their old master’s name might some day serve as the badge of slavery. He had lately become a Northern Methodist exhorter of great fame and went from church to church holding revivals, particularly among the sisters of the church, calling them to the life of stainless purity of those who had not merely “salvation,” as the ordinary Methodist or Baptist understood it, but “sanctification” as only those of the inner circle of the Lord knew it.