As she sang Ishmael came up behind her, turned the leaves of her music book, and accompanied her in his rich bass voice. At the end of that one song she arose and closed her piano.
"Thank you, my dear," said the judge, drawing his daughter to him and kissing her cheek. "Your song was very appropriate; there is not one here who could not enter into its sentiment with all his heart."
Slowly and sadly Claudia bowed her head; and then she passed on to one of the side tables, took up a lighted bedroom candle, bade them all good-night and retired.
Reuben and Hannah, who on this occasion, at Judge Merlin's request, had remained in the drawing room, now arose and took a respectful leave. And soon after this, Ishmael and the judge separated and retired to their respective chambers.
Ishmael was shown into that one which he had occupied during that eventful first sojourn at Tanglewood. How full of the most interesting associations, the most tender memories, that chamber was. There was the bed upon which he had lain for weeks, a mangled sufferer for Claudia's sake. There was the very same armchair she had sat in hour after hour by his side, beguiling the tedious days of convalescence by talking with him, reading to him, or singing and playing to him on her guitar. Sigh after sigh burst from Ishmael's bosom as he remembered these times. He went to bed, but could not sleep; he lay awake, meditating and praying.
While Ishmael in his lonely chamber prayed, another scene was going on in another part of the house.
Old Katie was holding a reception in the kitchen. All the house servants, all the field laborers, and all the neighboring negroes— bond and free, male and female—were assembled at Tanglewood that night to welcome Katie and her companions home and hear their wondrous adventures in foreign lands.
Katie, in the most gorgeous dress of Scotch plaid, that displayed the most brilliant tints of scarlet, blue and yellow, purple, orange, and green, with a snow-white turban on her head and a snow- white kerchief around her neck, with broad gold ear-rings in her ears and thick gold finger-rings on her fingers—sat in the seat of honor, the chip-bottom armchair, and, for the benefit of the natives, delivered a lecture on the manners and customs of foreign nations, illustrated by her own experiences among them.
Now, if Katie had only related the plain facts of her life in Scotland and in the West India Islands, they had been sufficiently interesting to her simple hearers, but Katie exaggerated her adventures, wrongs, and sufferings beyond all hope of pardon.
"I seen the Queen," she said. "She rode about in a silver coach drawed by a hundred milk-white hosses, wid a golden, crown on her head a yard and a half high, and more niggers to wait on her, chillun, dan you could shake sticks at."