And then just as I had reached this high peek of enthusiastic pleasure in the rewarding power of good deeds—especially good deeds that cost only a small portion of a handsome income—just at this point in my reflections I heard a slow footstep making laggard response to my ringing, and at once my heart sank into my walkrite shoes—for I would not have dared appear in French heels—and my hands trembled in their silk gloves. Was it Euphemia herself coming to admit the wanderer? Had she grown so feeble in six and one half years that her step was slow and halting? I feared to look as the door slowly opened. Yet look I must and did.
It was an enormous colored woman.
"Yass, Ise coming," she was beginning, when suddenly she recognized me, and her broad face lighted in a grin which extended from ear to ear.
"Lordy, if it ain't Miss Free!" she cried. "Ain't changed nothin' a-tall! My lawsy—where you-all come from, Miss Free?"
"I'm just from the train," I replied, stepping gingerly into the hall. "Surely you are not Galadia?"
"I sho' am!" she said. "You didn' spek I wuz gwine be a pickaninny no mo', did you, Miss Free?"
Of course this was exactly what I had expected—a pickaninny,—fourteen-year-old Galadia, short dress, long apron and all. Indeed not to find her so was a distinct shock.
"I'm afraid I did," I admitted truthfully.
"Well, bless yo' heart, Ise got fo' pickaninnies of ma own!" she exclaimed amazingly. "Three triplets and one single!"
"Galadia!" I exclaimed. "And you are still working here. Why didn't you write me you had married!"