Elsie delivered her mother’s messages and directions, and taking Evelyn with her, went through the house to see that all was in order for the reception of her brother and his wife, then sat down in the veranda for a chat with “mammy” before returning to Fairview.

“Mammy, dear,” she said interrogatively, “you are not grieving very much for Uncle Joe?”

“No, chile, no; he’s in dat bressed land whar dah no mo’ misery in de back, in de head, in any part ob de body; an’ no mo’ sin, no mo’ sorrow, no mo’ dyin’, no mo’ tears fallin’ down the cheeks, no mo’ trouble any kin’.”

“But don’t you miss him very much, Aunt Chloe?” asked Evelyn softly, her voice tremulous with the thought of her own beloved dead, and how sorely she felt his absence.

“Yes, chile, sho I does, but ’twont be for long; Ise so ole and weak, dat I knows Ise mos’ dar, mos’ dar!”

The black, wrinkled face uplifted to the sky, almost shone with glad expectancy, and the dim, sunken eyes grew bright for an instant with hope and joy.

Then turning them upon Evelyn, and, for the first time, taking note of her deep mourning, “Po’ chile,” she said, in tender, pitying tones, “yo’s loss somebody dat yo’ near kin?”

Evelyn nodded, her heart too full for speech, and Elsie said softly, “Her dear father has gone to be forever with the Lord, in the blessed, happy land you have been speaking of, mammy.”

“Bressed, happy man!” ejaculated the aged saint, again lifting her face heavenward, “an’ bressed happy chile dat has de great an’ mighty God for her father; kase de good book say, He is de father of de fatherless.”

A momentary hush fell upon the little group.  Then Mr. Leland, who had been looking into the condition of field and garden, as his wife into that of the house, joined them and suggested that this would be a good time and place for the telling of the story Eva had been asking for; especially as, in Aunt Chloe, they had a second eye-witness.

Elsie explained to her what was wanted.

“Ah, chillens, dat was a terrible time,” returned the old woman, sighing and shaking her head.

“Yes, mammy,” assented Elsie; “you remember it well?”

“Deed I does, chile;” and rousing with the recollection into almost youthful excitement and energy, she plunged into the story, telling it in a graphic way that enchained her listeners, though to two of them it was not new, and one occasionally assisted her memory or supplied a missing link in the chain of circumstances.[A]

[Footnote A:  For the details of this story, see “Elsie’s Motherhood.”]

CHAPTER VIII.

“Next stood hypocrisy, with holy leer,
Soft smiling and demurely looking down,
But hid the dagger underneath the gown.”

—­Dryden.

While old mammy told her story to her three listeners in the veranda at Ion, a train was speeding southward, bearing Edward and Zoe on their homeward way.