were folded across her
ample bosom, and she seemed to be glaring at Nan with a frown on her
face, but she was thinking.

"Well," she said with a sigh, "I knowed there was gwine to be trouble of
some kind--old Billy Sanders went by here this mornin' as drunk as a
lord."

"Drunk!" cried Nan with blanched face.

"Well, sorter tollerbul how-come-you-so. The last time old Billy was
drunk, was when sesaytion was fetched on. Ev'ry time he runs a straw in
a jimmy-john, he fishes up trouble. An' my dream's out. I dremp last
night that a wooden-leg man come to the door, an' ast me for a pair of
shoes. I ast him what on earth he wanted wi' a pair, bein's he had but
one foot. He said that the foot he didn't have was constant a-feelin'
like it was cold, an' he allowed maybe it'd feel better ef it know'd
that he had a shoe ready for it ag'in colder weather."

"Oh, I hate him! I just naturally despise him!" cried Nan. When she was
angry her face was pale, and it was very pale now.

"Why do you hate the wooden-leg man, honey? It was all in a dream," said
Mrs. Absalom, soothingly.

"Oh, I don't know what you are talking about, Nonny!" exclaimed Nan,
ready to cry. "I mean old Billy Sanders. And if I don't give him a piece
of my mind when I see him. Now Gabriel will go to that place to-night,
and he's nothing but a boy."

"A boy! well, I dunner where you'll find your men ef Gabriel ain't
nothin' but a boy. Where's anybody in these diggin's that's any bigger
or stouter? I wish you'd show 'em to me," remarked Mrs. Absalom.

"I don't care," Nan persisted; "I know just what Gabriel will do. He'll
go to that place to-night, and--and--I'd rather go there myself."

"Well, my life!" exclaimed Mrs. Absalom, with lifted eyebrows.

The pallor of Nan's face was gradually replaced by a warmer glow. "Now,
Nonny! don't say a word--don't tease--don't tease me about Gabriel. If
you do, I'll never tell you anything more for ever and ever."

"All this is bran new to me," Mrs. Absalom declared. "You make me feel,
Nan, like I was in some strange place, talkin' wi' some un I never seed
before. You ain't no more like yourself--you ain't no more like you used
to be--than day is like night, an' I'm jest as sorry as I can be."

"That's what Gabriel says," sighed Nan. "He said he was sorry, and now
you say you are sorry. Oh, Nonny, I don't want any one to be sorry for
me."

"Well, then, behave yourself, an' be like you use to be, an' stop
trollopin