CHAPTER IX.
Doctor Bates came two days later and I saw him at breakfast as I stood behind my Young Master's chair. I was surprised to see that the years had touched him so lightly. Indeed, he appeared but little older than at the time I had thrown the glass tumbler at his head. And this set me to a study of all the faces about me. How slowly they had aged while Young Master and I had grown so fast! The doctor was dressed beyond any former mood of neatness, blue broad-cloth coat and ruffled shirt; and Miss May was beautiful in a long, beflowered gown. There had been a heavy frost, and a low, cheer-giving roar came from the logs in the great fire-place. Outside the negroes were singing and dancing in the crisp air. The looms and the spinning wheels were hushed; it was a time for music, for feasting, for jollification—a whole week of "colored freedom." The talk at the table was full of jest, for in the midst of the company was a great bowl of egg-nog. And even the steely eyes of my old mistress snapped with pleasant mischief.
"Doctor," she said, "Dan has become quite a student, and he writes Latin love-letters for black Steve."
"In Latin to show that Steve is dead in love!" the doctor roared, shaking his ruffled shirt with his mirth. "But I should think," he added, "that a woman who could love him must be color-blind."
"Or still worse, blind to all sentiment," suggested Young Master.
"Or left alone by all lovers," Miss May declared.
"But," said Old Master, "being so ill-favored he may be faithful."
"The ugly are not truer than the beautiful," Miss May spoke up.