“Colonel Ochiltree,” she muttered, “was shot at the battle of Culpepper Court House, and left me a widow for the second time.  But I would not have married any man on earth after him.”

“Mis’ Ochiltree!” cried William, raising his voice, “oh, Mis’ Ochiltree!”

“If I had found a man,—­a real man,—­I might have married again.  I did not care for weaklings.  I could have married John Delamere if I had wanted him.  But pshaw!  I could have wound him round”—­

“Go round to the kitchen, William,” interrupted Mrs. Carteret impatiently, “and tell Aunt Dinah to come and wake her up.”

William returned in a few moments with a fat, comfortable looking black woman, who curtsied to Mrs. Carteret at the gate, and then going up to her mistress seized her by the shoulder and shook her vigorously.

“Wake up dere, Mis’ Polly,” she screamed, as harshly as her mellow voice would permit.  “Mis’ ‘Livy wants you ter go drivin’ wid ’er!”

“Dinah,” exclaimed the old lady, sitting suddenly upright with a defiant assumption of wakefulness, “why do you take so long to come when I call?  Bring me my bonnet and shawl.  Don’t you see my niece waiting for me at the gate?”

“Hyuh dey is, hyuh dey is!” returned Dinah, producing the bonnet and shawl, and assisting Mrs. Ochiltree to put them on.

Leaning on William’s arm, the old lady went slowly down the walk, and was handed to the rear seat with Mrs. Carteret.

“How’s the baby to-day, Olivia, and why didn’t you bring him?”

“He has a cold to-day, and is a little hoarse,” replied Mrs. Carteret, “so I thought it best not to bring him out.  Drive out the Weldon road, William, and back by Pine Street.”

The drive led past an eminence crowned by a handsome brick building of modern construction, evidently an institution of some kind, surrounded on three sides by a grove of venerable oaks.

“Hugh Poindexter,” Mrs. Ochiltree exclaimed explosively, after a considerable silence, “has been building a new house, in place of the old family mansion burned during the war.”

“It isn’t Mr. Poindexter’s house, Aunt Polly.  That is the new colored hospital built by the colored doctor.”

“The new colored hospital, indeed, and the colored doctor!  Before the war the negroes were all healthy, and when they got sick we took care of them ourselves!  Hugh Poindexter has sold the graves of his ancestors to a negro,—­I should have starved first!”

“He had his grandfather’s grave opened, and there was nothing to remove, except a few bits of heart-pine from the coffin.  All the rest had crumbled into dust.”

“And he sold the dust to a negro!  The world is upside down.”

“He had the tombstone transferred to the white cemetery, Aunt Polly, and he has moved away.”

“Esau sold his birthright for a mess of pottage.  When I die, if you outlive me, Olivia, which is not likely, I shall leave my house and land to this child!  He is a Carteret,—­he would never sell them to a negro.  I can’t trust Tom Delamere, I’m afraid.”