On this particular morning there had been a lull in the feud.  Sawney had devoured his biscuit unmolested, and had offered no gratuitous insults to his foe.  Pocahontas, having emptied her basket, was watching her flock with interest and admiration, when Berkeley made his appearance on the porch with a letter in his hand.  He seemed in a hurry, and called to his sister impatiently.

“Look here, Princess,” he said, as she joined him, “here’s a letter from Jim to old Aunt Violet, his ‘mammy.’  He told me he had promised the old woman to write to her.  It came with my mail this morning, and I haven’t time to go over to Shirley and read it to her; I wish you would.  She’s too poorly to come after it herself, so put on your bonnet and step over there now, like a good girl.”

“Step over there, indeed!” laughed Pocahontas.  “How insinuatingly you put it.  Aunt Vi’let’s cabin is way over at Shirley; half a mile beyond Jim Byrd’s line fence.”

“General Smith’s line fence, you mean.  I wish you’d go, Princess.  There’s money in the letter, and I don’t want to send it by the negroes.  I promised Jim we’d look after the old woman for them.  The girls want her to come to Richmond, but she won’t consent to quit the old place.  She hasn’t any children of her own, you know.”

Pocahontas extended her hand for the letter.  “She ought to go to Richmond and live with Belle or Nina,” she said, slipping it into her pocket.  “She’d die of homesickness way out in California with Susie.  I wonder whether the new people will let her stay at Shirley?”

“Oh, yes; Jim made every arrangement when he found she wouldn’t consent to move.  He had an understanding with General Smith about the corner of land her cabin stands on; reserved it, or leased it, or something.  It’s all right.”

Always kind, always considerate, thought the girl, wistfully, even amid the pain and hurry of departure—­the sundering of old ties, finding time to care for the comfort of his old nurse.  Good, faithful Jim.

“Have the new people come?” she called after her brother, as he disappeared within the house.

“I don’t know.  I rather think they have,” he answered.  “I noticed smoke rising from the kitchen chimney this morning.  Ask Aunt Rachel—­the negroes are sure to know.”

Pausing a moment at the kitchen door to request the servants to inform her mother that she had walked over to Shirley to read a letter to old Aunt Vi’let, and would be home in an hour or so, Pocahontas set out on her expedition, never noticing that little Sawney, with a muttered “Me d’wine too,” was resolutely following her.  The way led along a pleasant country road, as level as a table, which ran, with scarcely a bend, or turning, straight from the Masons’ back gate over to the ancient home of the Byrd family at Shirley.  Overhead the interlacing branches of oak and magnolia trees made a gorgeous canopy of glossy green and russet, and the sunshine filtering through the leaves embroidered the old road with an intricate pattern of light and shadow.  Now and then a holly tree, or bush, bright with berries, made a lovely dash of color, and glowed all over with suggestions of Christmas and rejoicing.