ing to her lips and bit it with her strong, even teeth,
reckless of the havoc in the clumsy hem.

"Then county court days,--goin' to county court, an' comin' from
county court,--sech passels an' passels o' folks! I wisht we-uns hed
it afore the jury o' view kem, so we-uns mought view the jury o'
view."

"It's along o' the jury o' view ez we-uns will git the road,--ef we do
git it," the young man said cautiously.

It was one of his self-imposed duties to moderate, as far as he might,
his sister's views, to temper her enthusiasms and abate her various
and easily excited anger. He had other duties toward her which might
be said to have come to him as an inheritance.

"Ben's the boy!" his consumptive mother had been wont to say; "he's
sorter slow, but mighty sure. 'Brag is a good dog, but Hold-Fast is a
better.' Ef he don't sense nare 'nother idee in this life, he hev got
ter l'arn ez it's his business ter take keer o' Nar'sa. Folks say
Nar'sa be spoiled a'ready. So be, fur whilst Ben be nuthin' but a boy
he'll l'arn ter do her bid, an' watch over her, an' wait on her, an'
keer for her, an' think she be the top o' creation. It'll make her
proud an' headin', I know,--she'll gin her stepmammy a sight o'
trouble, an' I ain't edzactly lamentin' 'bout'n that,--but Ben'll take
keer o' her all her life, an' good keer, havin' been trained ter it
from the fust."

But his mother had slept many a year in the little mountain graveyard,
and her place was still empty. The worldly wise craft of the simple
mountain woman, making what provision she might for the guardianship
of her daughter, was rendered of scant effect, since her husband did
not marry again. The household went on as if she still sat in her
accustomed place, with not one deficiency or disaster that might have
served in its simple sort as a memorial,--so little important are we
in our several spheres, so promptly do the ranks of life close up as
we drop dead from their alignment.

The panoply against adversity with which Narcissa had been accoutred
by a too anxious mother, instead of being means of defense, had become
opportunities of oppression. Her brother's affectionate solicitude and
submissiveness were accepted as her bounden due, as the two grew
older; her father naturally adapted himself to the predominant
sentiment of the household; and few homes can show a tyrant more
arrogant and absolute than the mountain girl whose mother had so
predicted for her much har