take an hour's rest before putting her living-room in order for the night.
Although the twilight often fell before she returned from her mercantile
pursuits, she never intrusted Uncle Sheba with the task of getting supper,
and no housekeeper in the city kept her provisions under lock and key more
rigorously than did Aun' Sheba. After repeated trials, she had come to a
decision. "Mr. Buggone," she had said in her sternest tones, "you's wuss
dan poah white trash when you gets a chance at de cubbard. Sence I can't
trus' you nohow, I'se gwine to gib you a 'lowance. You a high ole
Crischun, askin' for you'se daily bread, an' den eatin' up 'nuff fer a
week."

Uncle Sheba often complained that he was "skimped," but his appearance did
not indicate any meagreness in his "'lowance," and he had accepted his lot
in this instance, as in others, rather than lose the complacent
consciousness that he was provided for without much effort on his part.

Supper was Aun' Sheba's principal meal, and she practically dined at the
fashionable hour of six. What she termed her dinner was a very uncertain
affair. Sometimes she swallowed it hastily at "Ole Tobe's rasteran," as
she termed the eating-room kept by a white-woolled negro; again she would
"happen in" on a church sister, when, in passing, the odor of some cookery
was appetizing. She always left, however, some compensation from her
basket, and so was not unwelcome. Not seldom, also, a lady or a citizen
who knew her well and the family to which she had once belonged, would
tell her to go to the kitchen. On such days Aun' Sheba's appetite flagged
at supper, a fact over which her husband secretly rejoiced, since his
allowance was almost double.

She was now resting after the fatigues of the day, and the effort to get
and dispose of a very substantial supper, and was puffing at her pipe in a