Mabel was too well versed in the customs of the race and class to take alarm at the mysterious invocation.  She watched the old woman’s movements in a sort of pensive amusement at the recollection of an incident of her childhood, brought vividly to her mind by the servant’s air and exclamation.

She was playing in the yard one day, when “Mammy” emerged from her cottage-door, and came toward her, with a batch of sweet cakes she had just baked for her nursling.

In crossing the gravel walk leading to the “house,” she struck her toe against the brick facing of this, and the cakes flew in all directions.

“Good Lord! my poor toe and my poor chile’s cakes!” was her vehement interjection; and as she bent to gather up the cookies, she grunted out the same adjuration, coupled with “my poor ole back!”—­a negress’ stock subject of complaint, let her be but twenty years old and as strong as an ox.

“Mammy!” said the privileged child, reprovingly, “I thought you were too good a Christian to break the commandments in that way.  You shouldn’t take the Lord’s name in vain.”

“Gracious!  Sugar-pie! how you talk!  Ef I don’t call ’pon Him in time of trouble, who can I ask to help me?” was the confident reply.

With no thought of any more formidable cause of outcry than a cramp in the much-quoted spine, Mabel dreamed on sketchily and indolently, enjoying the sight of the once-familiar process of building a wood-fire, until the yellow serpents of flame crept, red-tongued through the interstices of the lower logs, and the larger and upper began to sing the low, drowsy tune, more suggestive of home-cheer and fireside comfort than the shrill, monotonous chirp of the famous cricket on the hearth.  The pipe-clayed bricks on which the andirons rested were next swept clean; the hearth-brush hung up on its nail, and the architect of the edifice stepped back with a satisfied nod.

“I have often wished for a glimpse of one of your beautiful fires, Mammy, since I have been in Albany,” said Mabel, kindly.  “Our rooms and halls are all heated by furnaces.  An open fireplace would be a novelty to Northerners, and such a roaring, blazing pile of hard wood as that, be considered at unpardonable extravagance.”

“Humph!  I never did have no ’pinion of them people.”  Phillis tossed her turban and cocked her prominent chin.  “It’s all make money, and save! save!  If I was ’lowed to go with you, I’ll be bound I’d see you have sech things as you’ve been ’customed to.  The new folks, them what comed from nothin’ and nowhar, and made every dollar they can call their own with their own hands, don’t know how to feel for and look after real ladies.”

“You are wrong about that, if you mean that I have not every comfort I could ask.  My house is warm in the bitterest weather, and far more handsomely furnished than this.  And I have many kind friends.  I like the Northern people, and so would you, if you knew them well.”