An old black woman sat on the plain oaken settle which humble visitors waiting to see the minister were wont to occupy.  She was old, but how old it would be very hard to guess.  She might be seventy.  She might be ninety.  One could not swear she was not a hundred.  Black women remain at a stationary age (to the eyes of white people, at least) for thirty years.  They do not appear to change during this period any more than so many Trenton trilobites.  Bent up, wrinkled, yellow-eyed, with long upper-lip, projecting jaws, retreating chin, still meek features, long arms, large flat hands with uncolored palms and slightly webbed fingers, it was impossible not to see in this old creature a hint of the gradations by which life climbs up through the lower natures to the highest human developments.  We cannot tell such old women’s ages because we do not understand the physiognomy of a race so unlike our own.  No doubt they see a great deal in each other’s faces that we cannot,—­changes of color and expression as real as our own, blushes and sudden betrayals of feeling,—­just as these two canaries know what their single notes and short sentences and full song with this or that variation mean, though it is a mystery to us unplumed mortals.

This particular old black woman was a striking specimen of her class.  Old as she looked, her eye was bright and knowing.  She wore a red-and-yellow turban, which set off her complexion well, and hoops of gold in her ears, and beads of gold about her neck, and an old funeral ring upon her finger.  She had that touching stillness about her which belongs to animals that wait to be spoken to and then look up with a kind of sad humility.

“Why, Sophy!” said the good minister, “is this you?”

She looked up with the still expression on her face.  “It’s ol’ Sophy,” she said.

“Why,” said the Doctor, “I did not believe you could walk so far as this to save the Union.  Bring Sophy a glass of wine, Letty.  Wine’s good for old folks like Sophy and me, after walking a good way, or preaching a good while.”

The young girl stepped into the back-parlor, where she found the great pewter flagon in which the wine that was left after each communion-service was brought to the minister’s house.  With much toil she managed to tip it so as to get a couple of glasses filled.  The minister tasted his, and made old Sophy finish hers.

“I wan’ to see you ‘n’ talk wi’ you all alone,” she said presently.

The minister got up and led the way towards his study.  “To be sure,” he said; he had only waited for her to rest a moment before he asked her into the library.  The young girl took her gently by the arm, and helped her feeble steps along the passage.  When they reached the study, she smoothed the cushion of a rocking-chair, and made the old woman sit down in it.  Then she tripped lightly away, and left her alone with the minister.