In the Siner cabin old Caroline Siner berated her boy for his stupidity in ever trading with that low-down, twisting snake in the grass, Henry Hooker.  She alternated this with floods of tears.  Caroline had no sympathy for her offspring.  She said she had thrown away years of self-sacrifice, years of washing, a thousand little comforts her money would have bought, all for nothing, for less than nothing, to ship a fool nigger up North and to ship him back.

Of all Niggertown, Caroline was the most unforgiving because Peter had wounded her in her pride.  Every other negro in the village felt that genial satisfaction in a great man’s downfall that is balm to small souls.  But the old mother knew not this consolation.  Peter was her proxy.  It was she who had fallen.

The only person in Niggertown who continued amiable to Peter Siner was Cissie Dildine.  The octoroon, perhaps, had other criteria by which to judge a man than his success or mishaps dealing with a pettifogger.

Two or three days after the catastrophe, Cissie made an excursion to the Siner cabin with a plate of cookies.  Cissie was careful to place her visit on exactly a normal footing.  She brought her little cakes in the role of one who saw no evil, spoke no evil, and heard no evil.  But somehow Cissie’s visit increased the old woman’s wrath.  She remained obstinately in the kitchen, and made remarks not only audible, but arresting, through the thin partition that separated it from the poor living-room.

Cissie was hardly inside when a voice stated that it hated to see a gal running after a man, trying to bait him with a lot of fum-diddles.

Cissie gave Peter a single wide-eyed glance, and then attempted to ignore the bodiless comment.

“Here are some cookies, Mr. Siner,” began the girl, rather nervously.  “I thought you and Ahnt Carolin’—­”

“Yeah, I ’magine dey’s fuh me!” jeered the spectral voice.

“Might like them,” concluded the girl, with a little gasp.

“I suttinly don’ want no light-fingered hussy ma’yin’ my son,” proceeded the voice, “an’ de whole Dildine fambly ’ll bear watchin’.”

[Illustration:  In the Siner cabin old Caroline Siner berated her boy.]

“Won’t you have a seat?” asked Peter, exquisitely uncomfortable.

Cissie handed him her plate in confusion.

“Why, no, Mr. Siner,” she hastened on, in her careful grammar, “I just—­ ran over to—­”

“To fling herse’f in a nigger’s face ’cause he’s been North and got made a fool uv,” boomed the hidden censor.

“I must go now,” gasped Cissie.

Peter made a harried gesture.

“Wait—­wait till I get my hat.”

He put the plate down with a swift glance around for his hat.  He found it, and strode to the door, following the girl.  The two hurried out into the street, followed by indistinct strictures from the kitchen.  Cissie breathed fast, with open lips.  They moved rapidly along the semicircular street almost with a sense of flight.  The heat of the early autumn sun stung them through their clothes.  For some distance they walked in a nervous silence, then Cissie said: