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HOW JUNE FOUND MASSA LINKUM. 71

HOW JUNE FOUND MASSA LINKUM.

UNE laid down her knives upon the scrubbing-board, and

stole softly out into the yard. Madame Joilet was tak-

ing a nap up stairs, and, for a few minutes at least, the coast
seemed to be quite clear.

Who was June? and who was Madame Joilet ?

June was a little girl who had lived in Richmond ever since
she could remember, who had never been outside of the
city boundaries, and who had a vague idea that the North lay
just above the Chickahominy, and the Gulf of Mexico about
a mile below the James. She could not tell A from Z, nor
the figure 1 from 40; and whenever Madame Joilet made
those funny little curves and dots and blots with pen and
ink, in drawing up her bills to send in to the lodgers up
stairs, June considered that she was moved thereto by
witches. Her authority for this theory lay in a charming
old woman across the way, who had one tooth, and wore a
yellow cap, and used to tell her ghost stories sometimes in the
evening.

Somebody asked June once how old she was.

“°Spect I’s a hundred, — dunno,” she said gravely. Bx-
actly how old she was nobody knew. She was not tall enough
to be more than seven, but her face was like the face of a
little old woman. It was a queer little face, with thick lips
and low forehead, and great mournful eyes. There was