"You Ike," she shouted. The objects moved convulsively. "Wot you mean a sleepin' under dat bush?" The commotion in the shrubbery ceased and the objects reappeared in their normal position as the feet of a sleepy-eyed negro youth. "Ah ain' a sleepin' none, Miss Sereny, ah was a layin' under dat bush a ca'culatin' whar ah gwine to trim it." "You got a po' haid fo' figgers den. You computen all dis yere afternoon, ah guesses. Ma eye is on you, boy. Go change you' clothes an' git dat ca'ah down to de office a fo' you is late." Ike gathered the tools and disappeared in haste. Serena turned again to the girl, who had displayed but slight interest in the sleeping laborer. "It gittin' mighty late, chil'." "Yes, I know, Serena." "You bettah dress you'se'f." "Please, only a little longer." "You gwine be fo'ced to be mighty spry den," warned the old negress as she waddled into the house. "Oh, how wonderful," breathed the girl, a great joy suddenly showing in her face. "It's for me--from mother. Really." The worn volume lay open in her lap. It contained selections from the works of many poets. Upon the page before her these lines, taken from Coleridge's, "The Ancient Mariner," were printed, "He prayeth best who loveth best All things both great and small: For the dear God who loveth us, He made and loveth all." They were heavily underlined. In the broad margin was written in a tremulous hand which displayed the effects of illness, "My darling little daughter-- --live these lines. ELINOR DALE." A vast tenderness enfolded the girl. She reread the lines. "My mother is telling me how to live," she whispered. "Her voice is calling to me through all the years--the only time." She touched her lips impulsively to the place where the cherished hand had rested and then, clasping the book to her breast, she closed her eyes and remained so for awhile. When her lids raised anew, the blue eyes were filled with a great yearning as she breathed softly and reverently as if in prayer, "Yes, mother." A little later, Virginia entered the house and Serena told her, "Ah done lay out yo'all's clothes, honey chil'. Ef you want anythin' else jes yell." The girl dreamily climbed the broad staircase. At the bend she remembered something, and, turning back, smiled down at the old colored woman below. "Thank you, Serena," she called. Amply rewarded, the faithful servant contentedly busied herself once more with the affairs of the Dale household. From that far away day when she had, "'cided ah gwine foller Miss Elinor to de no'th," she had been recognized by well informed persons as one in authority in that home.