“Come down ‘fore light to sell my chickens an’ eggs,—­got a lot o’ money for ’em, too.  Missy Marvyn she sent Miss Scudder some turkey-eggs, an’ I brought down some o’ my doughnuts for de Doctor.  Good folks must lib, you know, as well as wicked ones,”—­and Candace gave a hearty, unctuous laugh.  “No reason why Doctors shouldn’t hab good tings as well as sinners, is dere?”—­and she shook in great billows, and showed her white teeth in the abandon of her laugh.  “Lor bress ye, honey, chile!” she said, turning to Mary, “why, ye looks like a new rose, ebery bit!  Don’t wonder somebody was allers pryin’ an’ spyin’ about here!”

“How is your Mistress, Candace?” said Mrs. Scudder, by way of changing the subject.

“Well, porly,—­rader porly.  When Massa Jim goes, ‘pears like takin’ de light right out her eyes.  Dat ar’ boy trains roun’ arter his mudder like a cosset, he does.  Lor’, de house seems so still widout him!—­can’t a fly scratch his ear but it starts a body.  Missy Marvyn she sent down, an’ says, would you an’ de Doctor an’ Miss Mary please come to tea dis arternoon.”

“Thank your mistress, Candace,” said Mrs. Scudder; “Mary and I will come,—­and the Doctor, perhaps,” looking at the good man, who had relapsed into meditation, and was eating his breakfast without taking note of anything going on.  “It will be time enough to tell him of it,” she said to Mary, “when we have to wake him up to dress; so we won’t disturb him now.”

To Mary the prospect of the visit was a pleasant one, for reasons which she scarce gave a definite form to.  Of course, like a good girl, she had come to a fixed and settled resolution to think of James as little as possible; but when the path of duty lay directly along scenes and among people fitted to recall him, it was more agreeable than if it had lain in another direction.  Added to this, a very tender and silent friendship subsisted between Mrs. Marvyn and Mary; in which, besides similarity of mind and intellectual pursuits, there was a deep, unspoken element of sympathy.

Candace watched the light in Mary’s eyes with the instinctive shrewdness by which her race seem to divine the thoughts and feelings of their superiors, and chuckled to herself internally.  Without ever having been made a confidante by any party, or having a word said to or before her, still the whole position of affairs was as clear to her as if she had seen it on a map.  She had appreciated at once Mrs. Scudder’s coolness, James’s devotion, and Mary’s perplexity,—­and inly resolved, that, if the little maiden did not think of James in his absence, it should not be her fault.