Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: " Is Miss Cunningham at home? " " 1 dunno, Missus ! " " Then you had better go and see. I will wait here." " I 've only bin hyar since yesterday ! " the girl volunteered, with a new but fainter grin, and disappeared into the dusk of the hall behind. Mrs. Drysdale chafed. " Dirty, slovenly creature ! I should like to have her under me for a week — only I should n't keep her ! When I see that kind of Kaffir girl I almost agree with Beau Livingston's barbarous assertion that the land has never been decently governed since the abolition of slavery. Oh, here you are again, are you?—Well, is Miss Cunningham in? " " Yaas, Missus. Will you come in hyar? " She shambled along the hall and opened a door into a large room — seemingly the drawing-room, if there had been one. Mrs. Drysdale walked in and looked round her. Some one had evidently made a half-hearted attempt to put it in order, and then' abandoned it in despair. One window was open, and a long ray of sunshine struggled in through the partly lowered blinds, displaying the forlorn appearance of ugly, faded furniture, heavy curtains looking terribly out of place in the African summer, a moth-eaten skin or so spread on the carpet, a dilapidated fern-stand with a few plants in it, and — Mrs. Drysdale turned as the door opened, glad to abandon her dreary inspection. If the room had filled her with pitying dismay however, the girl who advanced to meet her made it worse. She was evidently ashamed of herself to begin with, for she had been crying so that her face was streaked with tear-stains, her faiy fluffy hair was untidy, and her clothing looked hot and uncomfortable beside Mrs. Drysdale's fresh washing dress. The Professor's sister was quite a young girl — probably about nineteen or twenty; her figure was slight, and she was r... --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.