“Nineteen, seventy-five,” from the corner, and Hugh felt his courage giving way as he faintly called out: 

“Twenty.”

Only an instant did the auctioneer wait, and then his decision, “Gone!” made Hugh the owner of Uncle Sam, who, crouching down before him, blessed him with tears and prayers.

“I knows you’re good,” he said; “I knows it by yer face; and mebby, when the rheumatics gits out of my ole legs I kin work for mas’r a heap.  Does you live fur from here?”

“Look here, Sam,” and Hugh laughed heartily at the negro’s forlorn appearance, as, regaining his feet, he assumed a most deprecating attitude, asking pardon for tumbling down, and charging it all to his shaky knees.  “Look here, there’s no other way, except for you to ride, and me to walk.  Rocket won’t carry double,” and ere Sam could remonstrate, Hugh had dismounted and placed him in the saddle.

Rocket did not fancy the exchange, as was manifest by an indignant snort, and an attempt to shake Sam off, but a word from Hugh quieted him, and the latter offered the reins to Sam, who was never a skillful horseman, and felt a mortal terror of the high-mettled steed beneath him.  With a most frightened expression upon his face, he grasped the saddle pommel with both hands, and bending nearly double, gasped out: 

“Sam ain’t much use’t to gemman’s horses.  Kind of bold me on, mas’r, till I gits de hang of de critter.  He hists me around mightily.”

So, leading Rocket with one hand, and steadying Sam with the other, Hugh got on but slowly, and ’Lina had looked for him many times ere she spied him from the window as he came up the lawn.

“Who is he, and what did you get him for?” Mrs. Worthington asked, as Hugh led Sam into the dining-room.

Briefly Hugh explained to her why he had bought the negro.

“It was foolish, I suppose, but I’m not sorry yet,” he added, glancing toward the corner where the poor old man was sitting, warming his shriveled hands by the cheerful fire, and muttering to himself blessings on “young mas’r.”

But for the remembrance of her dress, ’Lina would have stormed, but as it was, she held her peace, and even asked Sam some trivial question concerning his former owners.  Supper had been delayed for Hugh, and as he took his seat at the table, he inquired after Adah.

“Pretty well when I left,” said his mother, adding that Lulu had been there since, and reported her as looking pale and worn, while Aunt Eunice seemed worried with Willie, who was inclined to be fretful.

“They need some one,” Hugh said, refusing the coffee his mother passed him on the plea that he did not feel like drinking it to-night.  “They need one of the servants.  Can’t you spare Lulu?”

Mrs. Worthington did not know, but ’Lina, to whom Lulu was a kind of waiting maid, took the matter up alone, and said: 

“Indeed they couldn’t.  There was no one at Spring Bank more useful, and it was preposterous for Hugh to think of giving their best servant to Adah Hastings.  Let her take care of her baby herself.  She guessed it wouldn’t hurt her.  Anyway, they couldn’t afford to keep a servant for her.”