"Well, a done keer ef a do," she said, still staring at him. She got in and took the level on her knee, then burst out laughing again—

"A reckon yuh wonders what a'm a haw-hawin' at?' she asked, suddenly. "Well, a'll tell yuh! 'Tiz case a feels jess like this hyuh contrapshun o' yourn. A haint hed a bite sence five this mawnin', and a've got a bubble in th’ middle o' me, a ken tell yuh!"

She opened her flexible mouth almost to her ears, showing both rows of speckless teeth, and roaring mirthfully again.

"I've got some sandwiches, here-won't you have one?" said Gilman.

"Dunno-what be they?" she asked, rather suspiciously, eyeing him side wise.

He explained to her, and she accepted one, tearing from it a huge semi-circle, which she held in her cheek while exclaiming :

"Murder! hain't that good, though? D'yuh eat them things ev'y day? Yuh looks hit! You're a real finelookin' feller-mos' ez good-lookin' ez Bill."

“Who is Bill?" asked Gilman, much interested in this, his first conversation with a genuine savage.

"Bill? he's muh pard, an' muh brother, too. I come down hyuh tuh git him a drink o' water, but a hain't foun' a spring yit."

"No, there isn't one in several miles," said Gilman. "Hyuh!" she cried. "Lemme git out."

"You g'long,"

And she was out, with the bound of a deer. she said; "a'm sorry a rode this far wi' you. You'll larf. 'bout muh bar foots, an' this hyuh rag o' mine, wi' them po' white trash an' niggers. Whar you fum, anyhow? You hain't a Fuginia feller. A kin tell by yo' talk. You called

roots 'ruts' jess now, an' yuh said we'd 'sun' be whar them other fellers be. Whar you fum?"

"From Massachusetts," said Gilman.

"S'that another langidge fuh some name a knows?” "No-it's the real name of another State."

"Well, hit's 'nuff tuh twis' a body's tongue, fuh life, so a done blame yuh s'much fuh yo' funny talk. Mawnin'.” And she began to swing herself upon a great lichen-crested boulder by the roadside.

Gilman was naturally curious as to the type of the young barbarian whom he had met on his drive to Black Creek, and, during a pause in his work, he told a young fellow named Watkins of his adventure, and asked him to what class the girl belonged.

"I reckon, sir, she was a sang-digger," said Watkins, laughing. "They're a awful wild lot, mostly bad as they make 'em, with no more idea of right an' wrong than a lot o' ground-horgs."

"But what is a 'sang-digger'?" asked Gilman, more and more curious.

"Well, sir, sang, or ginseng, ez the real name is, is a sorter root that grows thick in the mountains about here. They make some sorter medicine outer it. I've chawed it myself for heartburn. It's right paying, too-sang-digging is, sir; you ken git at least a dollar a pound for it, an' sometimes you ken dig ten pounds in a day, but that's right seldom. Two or three pounds a day is doin' well. They're a awful low set, sir, sang-diggers is. We call 'em 'snakes' hereabouts, 'cause they don't have no place to live cep'in' in winter, and then they go off somewhere or ruther, to their huts. But in the summer and early autumn they stop where night ketches 'em, an' light a fire an' sleep 'round it. They cert'n'y are a bad lot, sir. They'll steal a sheep or a horse

ez quick ez winkin'. Why, t'want a year ago that they stole a mighty pretty mare o' mine, that I set a heap by, an' rid off her tail an' mane a-tearin' through the brush with her. She got loose somehow an' come back to me. But they stole two horses for ole Mr. Hawkins, down near Fallin' Springs, an' he a'in't been able to git 'em back. There's awful murders an' villainies done by 'em. But some o' them sangdigger gals is awful pretty. Yes,

sir, I reckon she was a sang-digger, sure enough." [This wild creature of the woods was treated kindly by Gilman and his wife, and she finally sacrificed herself to save Mrs. Gilman.]

GRACE KING.

GRACE KING was born in New Orleans, the daughter of William W. King, and has made a reputation as a writer of short stories depicting Creole life. Her "Balcony Stories" are like pictures in their vivid intensity.

That was what she was called by everybody as soon as she was seen or described. Her name, besides baptismal titles, was Idalie Sainte Foy Mortemart des Islets. When she came into society, in the bril iant little world of New * By permission of the author, and publishers, The Century Co., N. Y.

Orleans, it was the event of the season, and after she came in, whatever she did became also events. Whether she went, or did not go; what she said, or did not say; what she wore, and did not wear—all these became important matters of discussion, quoted as much or more than what the President said, or the governor thought. And in those days, the days of '59, New Orleans was not, as it is now, a one-heiress place, but it may be said that one could find heiresses then as one finds type-writing girls now.

Mademoiselle Idalie received her birth and what education she had on her parent's plantation, the famed old Reine Sainte Foy place, and it is no secret that, like the ancient kings of France, her birth exceeded her education.

It was a plantation, the Reine Sainte Foy, the richness and luxury of which are really well described in those perfervid pictures of tropical life, at one time the passion of philanthropic imaginations, excited and exciting over the horrors of slavery. Although these pictures were then often accused of being purposely exaggerated, they seem now to fall short of, instead of surpassing, the truth. Stately walls, acres of roses, miles of oranges, unmeasured fields of cane, colossal sugar-house-they were all there, and all the rest of it, with the slaves, slaves, slaves everywhere, whole villages of negro cabins. And there were also, most noticeable to the natural, as well as visionary eye-there were the ease, idleness, extravagance, self-indulgence, pomp, pride, arrogance, in short the whole enumeration, the moral sine qua non, as some people considered it, of the wealthy slaveholder of aristocratic descent and tastes. What Mademoiselle Idalie cared to learn she studied, what she did not she ignored; and she followed the same simple rule untrammeled in her eating, drinking, dressing, and comportment generally; and whatever discipline may have been

exercised on the place, either in fact or fiction, most assuredly none of it, even so much as in a threat, ever attainted her sacred person. When she was just turned sixteen, Mademoiselle Idalie made up her mind to go into society. Whether she was beautiful or not, it is hard to say. It is almost impossible to appreciate properly the beauty of the rich, the very rich. The unfettered development, the limitless choice of accessories, the confidence, the self-esteem, the sureness of expression, the simplicity of purpose, the ease of execution,-all these produce a certain effect of beauty behind which one really cannot get to measure length of nose, or brilliancy of the eye. This much can be said; there was nothing in her that positively contradicted any assumption of beauty on her part, or credit of it on the part of others. She was very tall and very thin with small head, long neck, black eyes, and abundant straight black hair,

for which her hair-dresser deserved more praise than she,-good teeth of course, and a mouth that, even in prayer, talked nothing but commands; that is about all she had en fait d'ornements, as the modistes say. It may be added that she walked as if the Reine Sainte Foy plantation extended over the whole earth, and the soil of it were too vile for her tread.

Of course she did not buy her toilets in New Orleans. Everything was ordered from Paris, and came as regularly through the custom-house as the modes and robes to the milliners. She was furnished by a certain house there, just as one of a royal family would be at the present day. As this had lasted from her layette up to her sixteenth year, it may be imagined what took place when she determined to make her début. Then it was literally, not metaphorically, carte blanche, at least so it got to the ears of society. She