Project Gutenberg's Mam' Lyddy's Recognition, by Thomas Nelson Page
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Title: Mam' Lyddy's Recognition
1908
Author: Thomas Nelson Page
Release Date: November 16, 2007 [EBook #23512]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MAM' LYDDY'S RECOGNITION ***
Produced by David Widger
MAM' LYDDY'S RECOGNITION
By Thomas Nelson Page
Charles Scribner's Sons New York, 1908
Copyright, 1891, 1904, 1906
I
When Cabell Graeme was courting pretty Betty French up at the Château
place, though he had many rivals and not a few obstacles to overcome, he
had the good fortune to secure one valuable ally, whose frien-
dship stood
him in good stead. She was of a rich chocolate tint, with good features,
and long hair, possibly inherited from some Arab ancestor, bead-like
black eyes, and a voice like a harp, but which on occasion could become
a flame. Her figure was short and stocky; but more dignity was never
compressed within the same number of cubic inches.
Mam' Lyddy had been in the French family all her life, as her mother and
grandmother had been before her. She had rocked on her ample bosom the
best part of three generations. And when Freedom came, however much she
may have appreciated being free, she had much too high an estimate of
the standing of the Frenches to descend to the level of the class she
had always contemned as "free niggers." She was a deep-dyed aristocrat.
The Frenches were generally esteemed to be among the oldest and best
families in the county, and the Château plantation, with its wide fields
and fine old-