"But it wuz, I tell yer! Now I kin hate her 'cause I don' berlong ter her no longer. No good'll cum ter her!"
The words rang out in the deserted hall forebodingly. A ray of sunlight penetrated the coloured fan light above the door, dwelling for a moment with a strange significance, illumining the old negro's snow-white hair, her heavily lined features, her reddish brown skin and weird eyes.
"I did not know all this, Mammy," Natalia answered in a low voice. "I did not know. If I had it would have been different."
"Cose yer didn' know—yer done jes' fergit all 'bout Dicey—nebber think 'bout things down heah a bit, did yer, honey? I knowed dat wuz hit—hit wuz nateral enough. Yer wuzn't nuthin' but er lil gal when yer lef me."
"But you never sent me a letter, Mammy. You never got any one to answer mine for you."
Again the old woman's features contracted.
"She nebber gib me no letters frum yer. I nebber knowed whar yer wuz."
"You never got my letters?"
Dicey shook her head violently. Natalia looked at her a long time during the silence that followed, still holding her hand tight in her own.
"And to think that Sargent Everett should have bought you, Mammy," she said finally. "If it had to be—I'm glad he was the one."