Pete shuffled up and took her hand in his black paw.
“Howdy, Miss Sally. Lordy, marster done tole de truf—you looks jes ez young an’ chipper—How’s Mandy?”
“Mandy has lost her senses since old Abe Lincoln made you all free. She’s left me and gone to Richmond to go to school—the old idiot.”
“Hi! I allers did like Mandy, but I ain’t got no use fer dem niggers dat kin read ’n write. Readin’ an’ writin’ is fer white folks.”
“Shut up, you black rascal,” roared the Colonel, nevertheless highly delighted. “Madam, may I present my daughter—Olivia, my child.”
Olivia came up, and Mrs. Peyton kissed her affectionately, but not before a rapid glance which took in all there was of her.
“Like her sainted mother,” began the Colonel, dramatically.
“Not a bit,” briskly answered Mrs. Peyton. “A Berkeley all over, if ever I saw one. Child, I hope you are as nice as you are pretty.”
“Nobody ever told me I wasn’t nice,” responded Olivia with a smile.
“And not spoiled by your foreign travels?”