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 “Why, Ida May's in Nashville.” Caroline looked at Peter. “She wrote to Cissie, astin' 'bout you. She ast is you as bright in yo' books as you is in yo' color.” The old negress gave a pleased abdominal chuckle as she admired her broad-shouldered brown son.

“But I saw Ida May standing on the wharf-boat the day I came home,” protested Peter, still bewildered.

“No you ain't. I reckon you seen Cissie. Dey looks kind o' like when you is fur off.”

“Cissie?” repeated Peter. Then he remembered a smaller sister of Ida May's, a little, squalling, yellow, wet-nosed nuisance that had annoyed his adolescence. So that little spoil-sport had grown up into the girl he had mistaken for Ida May. This fact increased his sense of strangeness—that sense of great change that had fallen on the village in his absence which formed the groundwork of all his renewed associations.

Peter's prolonged silence aroused certain suspicions in the old negress. She glanced at her son out of the tail of her eyes.

“Cissie Dildine is Tump Pack's gal,” she stated defensively, with the jealousy all mothers feel toward all sons.

A diversion in the shouts of the children up the mean street and a sudden furious barking of dogs drew Peter from the discussion. He looked up, and saw a negro girl of about fourteen coming down the curved street, with long, quick steps and an occasional glance over her shoulder.