“Surely,” agreed Mr. Davidson blandly.

“Is you’—­’scuse de ole ‘oman, sir—­is you’ Unc’ Sam?”

The “quexshun” left the personage too staggered to laugh.  But the girl filled the staid place with gay peals.  Then she leaned over and patted the wrinkled and bony worn black knuckles.  “Bless your dear heart,” she said; “no, he isn’t, Aunt Basha.  He’s awfully important and good to us all, and he knows everything.  But he’s not Uncle Sam.”

The bewilderment of the old face melted to smiles.  “Dar, now,” she brought out; “I mout ’a know’d, becaze he didn’t have no red striped pants.  An’ de whiskers is diff’ent, too.  ’Scuse me, sir, and thank you kindly, marster.  Thank you, young miss.  De Lawd bress you fo’ helpin’ de ole ’oman.”  She had risen and she dropped her old time curtsey at this point.  “Mawnin’ to yo’, marster and young miss.”

But the girl sprang up.  “You can’t go,” she said.  “I’m going to take you to my house to see my grandmother.  She’s Southern, and our name is Cabell, and likely—­maybe—­she knew your people down South.”

“Maybe, young miss.  Dar’s lots o’ Cabells,” agreed Aunt Basha, and in three minutes found herself where she had never thought to be, inside a fine private car.

She was dumb with rapture and excitement, and quite unable to answer the girl’s friendly words except with smiles and nods.  The girl saw how it was and let her be, only patting the calico arm once and again reassuringly.  “I wonder if she didn’t want to come.  I wonder if I’ve frightened her,” thought Eleanor Cabell.  When into the silence broke suddenly the rich, high, irresistible music which was Aunt Basha’s laugh, and which David Lance had said was pitched on “Q sharp.”  The girl joined the infectious sound and a moment after that the car stopped.

“This is home,” said Eleanor.

Aunt Basha observed, with the liking for magnificence of a servant trained in a large house, the fine facade and the huge size of “home.”  In a moment she was inside, and “young miss” was carefully escorting her into a sunshiny big room, where a wood fire burned, and a bird sang, and there were books and flowers.

“Wait here, Aunt Basha, dear,” Eleanor said, “and I’ll get Grandmother.”  It was exactly like the loveliest of dreams, Aunt Basha told Jeems an hour later.  It could not possibly have been true, except that it was.  When “Grandmother” came in, slender and white-haired and a bit breathless with this last surprise of a surprising granddaughter, Aunt Basha stood and curtsied her stateliest.

Then suddenly she cried out, “Fo’ God!  Oh, my Miss Jinny!” and fell on her knees.

Mrs. Cabell gazed down, startled.  “Who is it?  Oh, whom have you brought me, Eleanor?” She bent to look more closely at Aunt Basha, kneeling, speechless, tears streaming from the brave old eyes, holding up clasped hand imploring.  “It isn’t—­Oh, my dear, I believe it is our own old nurse, Basha, who took care of your father!”