“Tell me what is in your heart, Jim, and then I will do the best I can,” said Ishmael, who possessed the rare gift of drawing out from others the best that was in their thoughts.

“Well, sir, I think a heap o’ my ole mother, I does; ’membering how she did foh me when I was a boy and wondering if anybody does for her now, and if she is comfortable down there at Tanglewood.  And I wants her to know it; and not to be a-thinking as I forgets her.”

Ishmael wrote rapidly for a few moments and then looked up.

“What else, Jim?”

“Well, sir, tell her as I have saved a heap of money for her out’n the presents the gemmen made me o’ Christmas, and I’ll bring it to her when I come down—­which the ole ’oman do love money, sir, better than she do anything in this world, ’cept it is me and old marster and Miss Claudia.  And likewise what she wants me to bring her from town, and whether she would like a red gownd or a yallow one.”

Ishmael set down this and looked up.

“Well, Jim?”

“Well, sir, tell her how she aint got no call to be anxious nor likewise stressed in her mind, nor lay ‘wake o’ nights thinking ’bout me, fear I should heave myself ’way, marrying of these yer trifling city gals as don’t know a spinning wheel from a harrow.  And how I aint seen nobody yet as I like better’n my ole mother and the young lady of color as she knows ’bout and ’proves of; which, sir, it aint nobody else but your own respected aunt, Miss Hannah’s Miss Sally, as lives at Woodside.”

“I have put all that down, Jim.”

“Well, sir, and about the grand wedding as is to be to-morrow, sir; and how the Bishop of Maryland is going to ’form the ceremony; and how the happy pair be going to go on a grand tower, and then going to visit Tanglewood afore they parts for the old country; and how she will see a rale, livin’ lord as she’ll be ’stonished to see look so like any other man; and last ways how Miss Claudia do talk about taking me and Miss Sally along of her to foreign parts, because she prefers to be waited on by colored ladies and gentlemen ’fore white ones; and likewise how I would wish to go and see the world, only I won’t go, nor likewise would Miss Claudia wish to take me, if the ole ’oman wishes otherwise.”

Ishmael wrote and then looked up.  Poor Jim, absorbed in his own affairs, did not notice how pale the writer’s face had grown, or suspect how often during the last few minutes he had stabbed him to the heart.

“Well, sir, that is about all I think, Master Ishmael.  Only, please, sir, put it all down in your beautiful language as makes the ladies cry when you gets up and speaks afore the great judges theirselves.”

“I will do my best, Jim.”

“Thank you, sir.  And please sign my name to it, not yourn—­my name—­James Madison Monroe Mortimer.”

“Yes, Jim.”

“And please direct it to Mistress Catherine Maria Mortimer, most in general called by friends, Aunt Katie, as is housekeeper at Tanglewood.”