: the man can't see through ye."

"Oh!" exclaimed the old woman, jerking herself from the photographer's
line of vision, "I didn't go fer to git in the way. But this ain't doin'
my washin'," she added, moving toward the entrance. Here, on a little
shelf, she found some tiles and brushes, which she took up to examine
and hold before the other women, who were seated awaiting the
picture-taking. "What's these here things?"

"Artists' materials," replied the photographer, removing his head from
under the black cloth, and that from the camera.--"Now, my little man,
look straight at the hole in the box, and don't move.--That large brick
house--keep perfectly quiet--across the field seems a good point to
sketch from. Who lives there?"

"Harbisons," replied the landlady.

"Harbisons, eh? I suppose it was Miss Harbison I saw go past this
morning?--Don't move, my little man."

"I do' know," demurred the washer-woman, whose sole recreation in life
was the faculty of speech. "I ain't seen Mis' Harbison to town to-day.
They's him and her and the boys. Both the boys is away f'm home now.
What-fer lookin' woman?"

"It was a young lady in a wide hat."

"Oh, that's Miss Gill: she's some kin to 'em. She's a school-teacher to
Bunker Hill or Peru. Laws! I hate to see anybody so proud."

"That's a good boy!" said the photographer. He removed his plate and
carried it to the rear room, where he required the assistance of
Mallston, who had watched the process with silent interest. Presently
reappearing with the dripping negative, which he held for the women to
see, he repeated incidentally, "Proud, is she, this Miss Gill?"

"Yes, she is, kind o'," testified the neighbor who was called
Jane.--"It's a reel good one, ain't it?"

"If ye take as good as this all the time," cried the pleased landlady,
holding off the negative and giving that excited drawl to the terminal
word which may distinguish Kentuckians, for she claimed to be one,
"every girl in town 'll be comin' after the'r picter-uh!"

"Except the proud Miss Gill."

The landlady, who had a moustache, bristled it over her square mouth: "I
never ast much about her. She's kind o' yaller-complected, but some says
she's smart. Bill Harbison was smart too, but he's all broke up now.
They don't own nothin' but the house and grounds they're livin' in."

"Laws!" poured in the steady washer-woman, "I used to work fer Mis'
Harbison when she was well off--I done knit socks and pieced qui