grave consequences."

I tried various expedients to cheer her up. I read novels to her. I had
the hands on the place come up in the evening and serenade her with
plantation songs. Friends came in sometimes and talked, and frequent
letters from the North kept her in touch with her former home. But
nothing seemed to rouse her from the depression into which she had
fallen.

One pleasant afternoon in spring, I placed an armchair in a shaded
portion of the front piazza, and filling it with pillows led my wife out
of the house and seated her where she would have the pleasantest view of
a somewhat monotonous scenery. She was scarcely placed when old Julius
came through the yard, and, taking off his tattered straw hat, inquired,
somewhat anxiously:--

"How is you feelin' dis atternoon, ma'm?"

"She is not very cheerful, Julius," I said. My wife was apparently
without energy enough to speak for herself.

The old man did not seem inclined to go away, so I asked him to sit
down. I had noticed, as he came up, that he held some small object in
his hand. When he had taken his seat on the top step, he kept fingering
this object,--what it was I could not quite make out.

"What is that you have there, Julius?" I asked, with mild curiosity.

"Dis is my rabbit foot, suh."