“Oh, you have come!  Do buy me, Sir!  I will be so good!  I will do everything you tell me!  Oh, I am so unhappy!  Do buy me, Sir!”

He patted her on the head, and looked down compassionately into the swimming eyes that were fixed so imploringly upon his.

“Buy you, my poor child?” he replied.  “I have no house,—­I have nothing for you to do.”

“My mother showed me how to sew some, and how to do some embroidery,” she said, coaxingly.  “I will learn to do it better, and I can earn enough to buy something to eat.  Oh, do buy me, Sir!  Do take me with you!”

“I cannot do that,” he replied; “for I must go another day’s journey before I return to Mobile.”

“Do you live in Mobile?” she exclaimed, eagerly.  “My father lived in Mobile.  Once I tried to run away there, but they set the dogs after me.  Oh, do carry me back to Mobile!”

“What is your name?” said he; “and in what part of the city did you live?”

“My name is Louisa Duncan; and my father lived at Pine Grove.  It was such a beautiful place! and I was so happy there!  Will you take me back to Mobile? Will you?”

Evading the question, he said,—­

“Your name is Louisa, but your father called you Loo Loo, didn’t he?”

That pet name brought forth a passionate outburst of tears.  Her voice choked, and choked again, as she sobbed out,—­

“Nobody has ever called me Loo Loo since my father died.”

He soothed her with gentle words, and she, looking up earnestly, as if stirred by a sudden thought, exclaimed,—­

“How did you know my father called me Loo Loo?”

He smiled as he answered, “Then you don’t remember a young man who ran after you one day, when you were playing with a little white dog at Pine Grove? and how your father called to you, ’Come here, Loo Loo, and see the gentleman’?”

“I don’t remember it,” she replied; “but I remember how my father used to laugh at me about it, long afterward.  He said I was very young to have gentlemen running after me.”

“I am that gentleman,” he said.  “When I first looked at you, I thought I had seen you before; and now I see plainly that you are Loo Loo.”

That name was associated with so many tender memories, that she seemed to hear her father’s voice once more.  She nestled close to her new friend, and repeated, in most persuasive tones, “You will buy me?  Won’t you?”

“And your mother?  What has become of her?” he asked.

“She died of yellow fever, two days before my father.  I am all alone.  Nobody cares for me.  You will buy me,—­won’t you?”

“But tell me how you came here, my poor child,” he said.

She answered, “I don’t know.  After my father died, a great many folks came to the house, and they sold everything.  They said my father was uncle to Mr. Jackson, and that I belonged to him.  But Mrs. Jackson won’t let me call Mr. Duncan my father.  She says, if she ever hears of my calling him so again, she’ll whip me.  Do let me be your daughter!  You will buy me,—­won’t you?”