The colonel's face grew radiant and tender as he watched them. "Faithful creatures!" he said, in undertone to Lance. "Most of my people stayed by me when the fight was over. I told them they were free to go where they liked, that they didn't belong to me any more, and I couldn't tell whether I could give them work--much less support them. But they wouldn't go. They clung round me; and little by little we all got on our feet again. They said: 'You's been a good massa to us, and we ain't gwine to leave you now yore in trouble, Massa Cunnel.' And so we built up, together, what small prosperity there is here now. I had fed and clothed them, Lance, and spent many thousand dollars in buying them, but they did not forget everything, as many white people do. I little thought it would be my old slaves who would help me out in the hour of need--I to whom _they_ had always looked for help. But so it was. My God, it has been worth all the cost and the suffering! We are more human than we were." The veteran planter was deeply affected; and, as he spoke, a mist seemed to clear away from the young man's mind, and he beheld the simple ceremony that was taking place, in a transfigured light. Here, close to his eyes, was an act in the endless changes and developments through which humanity is forever passing: the lifting up, the pulling down, the growth of new types and phases, the subsidence of old forms of life, accompanied by the survival of certain among their features. One of the negroes, bolder than the rest, after wishing Jessie happiness all her days, said he knew it wasn't right to ask her for anything now, but if she "would only give him a little book to read in." ... The book was instantly forthcoming. Jessie went to her secretary, and took one from the slender row of volumes on its upper shelf. But at this Sally came forward again. "Why, missy," she said softly, in Jessie's ear, where Lance's pearl was trembling, "ole Scip ain't no 'count. He war on'y coachman, you know, befo'. He didn't nevah b'long to _you_ and the missus. But I come from _yo'_ side de house, yo' know I does; and now yo' dun gone give him suffin', why I'd kin' o' like dat ar pink frock what you mos' got fru wearin'. 'Tain't good nuff for yo', nohow, missy, and ole Sally she'd be mighty glad on't, ef you don' want it no mo'." So Jessie laughed, and sent Sally up-stairs to get the garment of her desire; and from that moment on the reception was metamorphosed into an exchange of gifts.