"Sho' not! Sho' not," chuckled the old woman. "And Mammy Blanche jest as spry now, an' able to do for you, as she used to be."
"What? Have you come to stay with us awhile, Mammy Blanche?" asked Broxton Day. "Your brother?"
"Esek is daid. His wife's gone back to her own people. Ah ain't got nobody, nor nohin' of mah own in dis here worl' Mistah Brocky, onless dey is under dis here roof. I has come to stay, sah, if you is of a min' to give mah ol' bones house room."
Janice had been breathless. But she had listened, and gradually she had begun to understand. She could remember a good deal that her dear mother had told her about Mammy Blanche. And this was she!
The girl put her hand confidently into that of the black woman's.
She looked up at her father brightly.
"I take it all back, Daddy," she murmured. "I was ungrateful and suspicious of fate, wasn't I? We don't lose."
CHAPTER XXX. WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN EXPECTED
It took several days for Janice to understand thoroughly just what it meant to have Mammy Blanche in the house. Of course, Mrs. Carringford had been perfectly capable; yet she felt that she must ask Janice or Mr. Day once in a while about things.
Not Mammy Blanche! She knew what to do, and how to do it, and just what "the white folks" wanted. She remembered just as perfectly how Mr. Day liked things on the table, and what he was fond of, and even how he wanted his bed made, as though she had only been absent from the house a week instead of ten years.
"Why, bress your heart, honey," she said to Janice, "Ah come into dis here house when it was fust built. Ah cleaned it wid mah own han's. Ah put up de fust curtains at de windahs. Ah knowed where everything was in dem days. "But Ah spec' now you's had so many no-count folks in de house fixin' fo' you dat Ah can't find a bressed thing. Dars's dat old walnut wardrobe up in de sto'room. It come from de Avion place, it did. Ah bet de cobwebs ain't been swep' off de top o' dat wardrobe since yo' poor mamma died." "It was too tall for Mrs. Carringford or me to reach it," admitted Janice.