e greater than his remorse. He said
quickly:--

"You were speaking of father!--of his family--his lands and possessions.
Tell me again!"

"Wot are ye givin' us?" she ejaculated in husky suspicion, opening upon
him her beady eyes, in which the film of death was already gathering.

"Tell me of father,--my father and his family! his
great-grandfather!--the Atherlys, my relations--what you were saying.
What do you know about them?"

"THAT'S all ye wanter know--is it? THAT'S what ye'r' comin' to the old
washer-woman for--is it?" she burst out with the desperation of disgust.
"Well--give it up! Ask me another!"

"But, mother--the old records, you know! The family Bible--what you once
told us--me and Jinny!"

Something gurgled in her throat like a chuckle. With the energy of
malevolence, she stammered: "There wasn't no records--there wasn't no
family Bible! it's all a lie--you hear me! Your Atherly that you're so
proud of was just a British bummer who was kicked outer his family in
England and sent to buzz round in Americky. He honey-fogled me--Sally
Magregor--out of a better family than his'n, in Kansas, and skyugled me
away, but it was a straight out marriage, and I kin prove it. It was
in the St. Louis papers, and I've got it stored away safe enough in
my trunk! You hear me! I'm shoutin'! But he wasn't no old settler in
Mizzouri--he wasn't descended from any settler, either! He was a new man
outer England--fresh caught--and talked down his throat. And he fooled
ME--the darter of an old family that was settled on the right bank
of the Mizzouri afore Dan'l Boone came to Kentucky--with his new
philanderings. Then he broke up, and went all to pieces when we struck
Californy, and left ME--Sally Magregor, whose father had niggers of his
own--to wash for Rough and Ready! THAT'S your Atherly! Take him! I don't
want him--I've done with him! I was done with him long afore--afore"--a
cough checked her utterance,--"afore"--She gasped again, but the words
seemed to strangle in her throat. Intent only on her words and scarcely
heeding her sufferings, Peter was bending over her eagerly, when the
doctor rudely pulled him away and lifted her to a sitting posture. But
she never spoke again. The strongest restoratives quickly administered
only left her in a state of scarcely breathing unconsciousness.

"Is she dying? Can't you bring her to," said the anxious Peter, "if only
for a moment, doctor?"

"I'm thinkin'," said the visiting d