My father drove on as fast as the horses could go, for although the weather was tolerably warm, my teeth were chattering with cold and fright, and he was anxious, wet as we were, not to expose my mother and me to the night air. By following Dio's directions, in less than ten minutes we reached a house of more pretensions than any we had yet seen. It was of one story, and raised on a sort of platform above the ground with a broad veranda in front. Behind it was a kitchen-garden, and plantations of tobacco, and fields of corn on either side. Dio, jumping out, ran to the horses' heads, and advised my mother to go first, taking me with her, and to introduce herself to Mammy Coe. "Yes, go, Kathleen," said my father, "the good woman will certainly not turn us away, although from what Dio says, she may not receive us very courteously." The door stood open; as we ascended the wooden steps, two huge blood-hounds rushed out, barking furiously, but Dio's voice kept them from molesting us. The noise they made served to summon "Mammy Coe," a brown lady of mature age, a degree or two removed from a negress, dressed, as I thought, in very gay colours, with a handkerchief of bright hue bound round her head, forming a sort of turban. "Who you strangers, whar you come from?" she asked in an authoritative tone, as if accustomed to command. My mother, in a few words, explained what had happened. "We should be thankful to you to allow us to have our clothes dried," she added. "Yas, strangers, me will gib you dat permission," answered Mammy Coe; "come 'long dis way. Your man too, him want change him clo'," she said, looking out and perceiving my father standing on the steps, still dripping wet. "Dio," she shouted, "take de horses round to de stable and bring in de strangers' tings." Dio promptly obeyed, glad, I am very sure, that his kind intentions had thus far been successful. "Come 'long, young woman, and bring de boy. You shall hab supper afterwards, den go to bed, you all right to-morrow." She led the way to a bed-room on one side of the entrance-hall, where my mother quickly stripped off my wet clothes and wrapped me up in a blanket. "Him better for some broth!" observed Mammy Coe in a kinder tone than she had yet used. "Now, young woman, you go to me room, and me give you some dry clothes, while your man, him go into Massa Bracher's room."