OH, how pleasant and nice. Am I to sleep here?”
Edna asked, as she skipped across the floor, and
knelt upon the hearth-rug in front of the fire.
“What's become of that little room? I thought—”

She did not say what she thought, for Becky interrupted
her with:

“Oh, dat's no 'count room; jes' put folks in thar when
they fust comes, then moves 'em up higher, like they does
in Scripter. Marster's mighty quare.”

[figure description] Page 151.[end figure description]

“How long have you lived with him?” Edna asked, and
Becky replied:

“Oh, many years. I was a slave on the block, in Car'-lina,
and Marster Phil comed in and seen me, and pitied me
like, and bid me off, and kep' me from gwine South with a
trader, an' brought me home and sot me free, and I've lived
with him ever since, an', please Heaven, I will sarve him till
I die, for all he's done for me. Is you gwine to stay, Miss
Overton?”

Edna told her that she was, and that she was sure she
should like it very much if she could get something to do.

“You likes to work then, and so did Miss Maude, though
she 'pears more of a lady than 'nough I've seen what
wouldn't lift thar finger to fotch a thing,” Becky said, and
Edna asked:

“Who is Maude? Uncle Phil has spoken of her once or
twice.”

“Why she's Maude Somerton, from New York,” Becky
replied; “and she came fust to Prospect Cottage, as they
call a house way up on the hills whar the city gentry sometimes
stay summers for a spell, and whar Miss Maude's
Aunt Burton was onct with her daughter called Georgie,
though she was a girl.”

Edna was interested now, and moved a little nearer to
Becky, who continued:

“I know precious little 'bout them Burtons, only they was
mighty big feelin', and Miss Maude was a kind of poor relation,
I s'pects; leastwise she wanted to teach school, and
Uncle Phil was committee-man and let her have it, and she
was to board round, and didn't like it, and went at Marster
Phil till he took her in, though he hated to like pison, and it
was allus a mystery to me how she did it, for he don't hanker
after wimmen much, and never could bar to have 'em
round.”

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Here Aunt Becky paused a moment, and taking advantage
of the pause, we will present our readers with a picture
which Aunt Becky did not see, else she would have known
just how Maude Somerton persuaded Uncle Philip to let her
have a home beneath his roof. The time, five o'clock or
thereabouts, on a warm summer afternoon: the place, a strip
of meadow land on Uncle Phil's premises: the Dramatis
Personœ, Uncle Phil and Maude Somerton: She, with the
duties of the day over, wending her way slowly toward the
small and rather uncomfortable gable-roofed house up the
mountain road, where it was her fate to board for that week,
aye, for two or three weeks, judging by the number of children,
who seldom left her alone for a moment, and who
each night contended for the honor of sleeping with the
“school-marm.” He, industriously raking up into mounds
the fragrant hay, and casting now and then a wistful glance
at a bank of clouds which threatened rain; when suddenly,
across the field, and bearing swiftly down upon him, came an
airy form, her blue linen dress held just high enough to clear
the grass, and at the same time show her pretty boots, with
the Broadway stamp upon them, and her dainty white petticoat,
whose tucks and ruffles were the envy of all the girls
in Rocky Point, and the bane of the wash-woman's life. Uncle
Phil saw the apparition, and saw the tucks and ruffles,
and thought what pretty feet Miss Somerton had, and what
tall boots she wore, and wondered why she was coming
toward him in such hot haste.

“Most likely some of those Beals' boys have been raisin'
Cain, and so she comes to me as committee-man. I'll be
blamed if I don't throw up the office, for I can't have wimmen
taggin' after me this way,” he thought, and pretending
not to see the young girl, now so near to him, he kept on
with his raking, until right before his very face came the vision
of blue and white, and a little, fat, dimpled hand was laid

[figure description] Page 153.[end figure description]

upon his rake, and a pair of soft, blue eyes looked up into
his with something like tears in them, while a pleading voice
told him how terrible it was to board round, to eat the
best cake every day, to be company all the time, and never
feel at home; besides, having from one to three children
fighting to sleep with you every night, when you wanted so
much to be alone. And then, still grasping the rake, Maude
asked if she might stay altogether at his house, where everything
was so nice, and cool, and quiet, and she could have a
room to herself, undisturbed by children.

“You will, I know you will, Mr. Overton,” and she
stopped for his reply.

Uncle Phil was more astounded than when asked by Edna
to kiss her. Of his own accord, he would quite as soon have
taken a young alligator into his family as a girl, a woman;
but there was something about this one standing there before
him, and now actually grasping his hand instead of the rake,
which completely unmanned him. Those eyes, and the
touch of the white fingers clinging so closely to his own,
could not be resisted, and with a quick, nervous motion, he
began to step backwards, and sideways, and then forwards,
ejaculating meanwhile, “Lord bless me,—yes, yes! I feel
very queer; yes I do. Let go my rake. This is sudden.
Yes, yes. You don't like sleepin' with all the young ones in
the deestrict. Don't blame you. I'd as soon sleep with
a nest of woodchucks. Yes, yes. This is curis. I must
have some snuff.”

He got his hand free from Maude, took two or three good
pinches of his favorite Macaboy, offered her some, and then,
giving a hitch to his suspender, replied to her question, repeated,
“May I stay with you, Mr. Overton?”

“Yes, yes; I s'pose you'll have to, if Beck is willin'. I'll
see her to-night, and let you know.”

He said this last by way of giving himself a chance to

[figure description] Page 154.[end figure description]

draw back, for already he began to repent, and feel how
terrible it would be to have a young woman in his house all
the time,—to-day, to-morrow, and next day. It was a great
deal worse than sleeping with every child in town, and he
brought up Beck as the pack-horse who was to carry the
burden of his refusal on the morrow. But Maude outwitted
him there.

“Oh, thank you, thank you!” she cried. “You are the
dearest man in the world. Becky is all right. I saw her
first, and she said if you were willing, she was. I shall
move this very day, for I cannot stay with Mrs. Higgins another
hour. Thank you again, ever so much, you dear,
darling man.”

She was tripping off across the fields, leaving the enemy
totally routed and vanquished, and sick at his stomach, and
dizzy-headed, as he tried to think how many more weeks
there were before vacation.

“Nine, ten, TWELVE!” he fairly groaned. “I can't
stand it. I won't stand it. I'll put a stop to it,—see if I
don't. Yes, yes; to have them boots trottin' up and down
the stairs, and them petticoats whiskin' through the doors,
and makin' me feel so curis. I'll go crazy,—I feel like it
now.”

He tried snuff,—six pinches; but that didn't answer.
Then he tried raking hay so fast, that to use his own words,
“he sweat like a butcher;” then he tried cooling his feet in
the brook near by, and wiping them on his bandanna; but
nothing was of avail to drive away “that curis feelin' at the
pit of his stomach,” and long before sunset he left his work,
and wended his way homeward.

The enemy was there before him, or, at least, a part of
her equipments, for two of the Higgins' boys had brought
over Maude's satchel, and sun-umbrella, and water-proof,
and two or three books, and a pair of overshoes; all of

[figure description] Page 155.[end figure description]

which were on the kitchen-table, while the boys were swinging
on the gate in the front yard.

Uncle Phil ordered the boys home, and “the traps” up
in the little “back chamber.”

“That'll start her. She'll find that worse than sleepin'
with the Higginses,” he thought, as he gave the order, and
then went and took a dose of something he called “jallup.”
“He had an awful headache,” he said to Aunt Becky, when
she inquired what was the matter; and his headache increased,
and sent him to bed before Maude arrived, flushed,
delighted, and full of spirits that her boarding 'round was
over.

He heard her go up to her little hot back room, and
wondered how she liked it, and how long she'd stay in it,
and half wished he had nailed the window down so she could
not open it.

She was up bright and early the next morning, and drove
the cows to their pasture, a distance of half a mile, and
brought back a bunch of flowers, which she arranged upon
the table; and she looked so fresh and pretty in her blue
gown, which just matched her eyes, and ate cold beans so
heartily, that Uncle Phil began to relent, and that night she
slept in the north-west room instead of the little back one.
There she stayed a week; and then, after having helped
Uncle Phil rake up his hay one day when a shower was
coming up, she was promoted to the north, and best chamber,
and some nice striped matting was bought for the floor,
and a pretty chestnut set took the place of the high-post bedstead
and old-fashioned bureau; and some curtains were
hung at the windows, for Uncle Phil said “he didn't want
the whole town to see the girl undress, if they did him.”

And here for weeks Maude reigned, a very queen, and
cheered and brightened up the old farm-house until, when in
the fall she left and went back to Oakwood, Aunt Becky

[figure description] Page 156.[end figure description]

cried for sheer loneliness, and Uncle Phil took a larger dose
of “jallup” to help the feeling at his stomach, than when
she first came to him.

And this was how Maude Somerton chanced to be an
inmate of Uncle Phil's family, and enshrined in his heart, as
well as in old Becky's, as a kind of divinity, whom it was not
so very wrong to worship.

“'Pears like we never could get over hankerin after her,”
Becky said to Edna, “she was so chirk and pert-like, and
made the house so different.”

Edna was longing to ask another question, but did not
quite know how to get at it. At last she said:

“Does Miss Somerton live in New York all the time?
Has her Aunt Burton no country residence?”

“Yes, bless you, a house as big as four of this, down to
Oakwood, whar thar's looking-glasses as long as you be,
Miss Maude said, and furniture all covered with satin.”

Edna was no nearer her point than before, and so she
tried again.

“Have they any neighbors at Oakwood, any families they
are intimate with?”

“Yes, thar's the Leighton's, to my way of thinkin' quite
as sot up as the Burtons, and thar place, Miss Maude say,
is handsomer and bigger than the one to Oakwood.”

“Oh, indeed, Mrs. Leighton must be a happy woman.
Did you ever see her?” Edna asked, and Becky replied,

“Thar ain't no Miss Leighton; she's Miss Churchill,
married twicet; her oldest boy, Mr. Roy, owns the property,
and is the nicest man I reckon you ever seen. He stayed to
the hotel oncet a few weeks, and I done his washin', 'case
he couldn't find nobody handy, and Marster Phil let me do
it and keep the pay. He wore a clean shirt a day, and cuffs
and collars, and white vests, and pocket handkerchiefs, and

[figure description] Page 157.[end figure description]

socks without end; and gave me seventy-five cents a dozen
just as they run, which made me a nice handful of money.”

“Yes,” Edna said, musingly; “I suppose he must be
very rich? Is he the only child?”

“Ne-oo,” and Aunt Becky spoke a little scornfully, while
Edna moved so as to hide her burning face.

She had reached the point at last, and her heart beat almost
audibly as Aunt Becky continued:

“Or he wasn't the only child when they was here.
Thar was a younger one, a Charles Churchill, who got killed
on the railroad a spell ago. You should speak well of the
dead, and I mean to; but I reckon he wasn't of so much
'count in these yer parts as Master Roy.”

“Did he do anything bad,” Edna asked, and her voice
was very low and sad.

“No, not bad, only wan't of much 'count. He druv fast
horses, and smoked all the time, and bragged about his
money when he hadn't a cent, and flirted with the girls
awfully. Thar's Miss Ruth Gardner, all of three years
older than him, thought she should catch him sure, and
little Marcia Belknap was fairly bewitched; and both on
'em cried when they heard he was dead, though he left a
wife, the papers said, married that very day.”

“Oh, dreadful,” and Edna groaned aloud, for she saw
again that awful scene, and the white, still face upturned to
the angry sky, and it seemed wrong to sit there and make
no sign while Becky went on.

“I hain't seen Miss Maude since, so I don't know nothin'
about his wife, who she was, nor whar she is. Down to
the Leighton Place, maybe, though it's been surmised that
she warn't much,—kind of poor white folksy, I reckon; and
if that's so, Miss Churchill ain't a-goin' to own her, 'case she's
mighty big feelin', and turned up her nose at Miss Ruth, and
took her boy home to git shet of her. But Miss Ruth is

p595-163 [figure description] Page 158.[end figure description]

enough for her, and I've hearn she talked awful about that
wife of Charlie's, and said she jest wished she could see her
long enough to tell her she had the best and fustest right to
her husband. Oh, she's a clipper, Miss Ruth is.”

Edna's hands were locked firmly together, and the nails
were making red marks upon her flesh, while she longed for
Aunt Becky to leave her. She had heard enough, and she
looked so white and tired, that Becky noticed it at last, and
asked if she was sick.

“No, only tired,” she said; and then Becky said good-night,
and left her alone with her sad thoughts, which, however,
were not all sad and bitter.

She had lost her first love in more ways than one, and as,
with her head bent down, she sat thinking of him and all
she had heard, she felt a fresh pang of remorse cut through
her heart at her own callousness in feeling that perhaps for
herself it was better that Charlie died. But only for herself.
When she thought of him, and what he might have been, had
space for repentance been granted him, her tears flowed like
rain, and, prone upon her face, she prayed that if the prayers
of the living for the dead could avail, hers might be heard
and answered for her lost, wayward Charlie.