"Yes?" inquired Mme. Castanado. "Well?"  
"Ah, surely!" cried several, "Tha'z not all?"
 
Mme. De l'Isle appealed to her husband: "Even two, three hun'red mile', that din'n' bring the line of Canada, I think."
 
"No, but, I suppose, of the Ohio."
 
"And that undergroun' railway!" said Scipion.
 
"Yes," Mme. Alexandre agreed, "but that story remain' unfinizh' whiles that uncle of Mr. Chezter couldn' return at his home."
 
"Not even his State," ventured mademoiselle.
 
"But he did," Chester said; "he came back."
 
M. Dubroca spoke¹ up: "Oh, 'tis easy to insert that, at the en'--foot-note."
 
"And Hardy²?" asked Beloiseau, "him and yo' uncle, they di'n' shoot either the other?"
 
"I believe they did, each the other. I never quite understood the hints I got of it, till now. I know that six months in bed with a back full of somebody's buckshot saved my uncle's life."
 
"From lynching! That also muz' be insert'!"
 
Chester thought not. "No, centre the interest in the runaway³ family, as in mademoiselle's 'Clock in the Sky.'" And so all agreed.
 
A second time he walked home with mademoiselle, under the same lenient⁴ escort as before. One thus occupied, by moonlight, can moralize as he cannot with any larger number. "It's hard enough at best," he said, "for us, in our pride of race, to sympathize--seriously--in the joys, the hopes, the sufferings of souls under dark skins yet as human as ours if not as white."
 
"Yes, 'tis true. Only one man, Mr. Chester, I ever knew, myself, who did that."
 
"Your father?"
 
"Yes, my dear father."
 
"Will you not some day tell me his story?"
 
"Mr. Castanado will tell you it. Any of those will tell you."
 
"I can't question them about you, and besides----"
 
"Well, here is my gate. 'And besides--' what?"
 
"Besides, why can't you tell me?"
 
"Ah, I'll do that--'some day,' as you say."
 
The gate-key went into the lock.
 
"But, mademoiselle, our 'Clock in the Sky'--our 'Angel of the Lord'--shan't we join them?"
 
"Ah, they are already one, but you have yet to hear that first manuscript, and that is so very separate--as you will see."
 
"Isn't it also a story of dark skins?"
 
"Ah, but barely at all of souls under them; those souls we find it so hard to remember."
 
"Chère fille"--M. De l'Isle had come up, with Mme. Alexandre--"the three will go gran'ly together! Not I al-lone perceive that, but Scipion also--Castanado--Dubroca. Mr. Chester, my dear sir, the pewblication of that book going to be heard roun' the worl'! Tha'z going produse an

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