aling over
her again, and as much to dispel her own gloom as to keep her word,
which she never broke if she could possibly help it, she cake-walked
down the long kitchen with the gravest of faces and the most ludicrous
of gestures. Down and back, down and back, head thrown sidewise over her
shoulder, body bent at an angle which threatened a tumble backwards, and
her feet alternately tossing the engulfing apron high on this side, then
on that, and now become utterly oblivious of Susanna in her earnestness
to distinguish herself--the girl seemed the absurdest creature it had
ever been the housekeeper's lot to see.

She still felt insulted by Katharine's term of "servant," but could not
repress a smile, and turned into the pantry to hide that telltale
weakness.

Looking in through that same pantry window, his mouth agape, his eyes
twinkling, was her housemate and natural enemy, Moses. Hitherto he had
taken slight notice of the small new member of the household, and Kate
had been rather afraid of him. It would, therefore, be killing two birds
with one stone, or punishing two annoying people at one time, to pair
them off together, thought Susanna, remarking:

"Well, Mr. Jones, when you get done staring at the monkey-shines of that
young one you can just take her in charge a spell. Goin' to the
wood-lot, ain't ye?"

"You know I be. Said so at breakfast, didn't I? Silly women always do
have to have idees druv into their heads, like nails, 'fore they can
clinch 'em. Eunice 'lowed that we'd ought to have a lot more small
sticks chopped," answered the man who managed the estate but was
presumably managed himself by Miss Maitland. He had his axe over his
shoulder, and had merely stopped at the pantry window, kept open for his
benefit, to take a drink from the pail of buttermilk which stood there.

"Well, Eunice has gone down to Madam's. And I've no time to bother, and
you'll have to take her 'long with ye. If she ain't under somebody's eye
no tellin' what'll happen. Harm of some kind, sure's you're born."

Moses was about to retort and decline, but a second glance at the child,
who had now finished her cake-walk and was listening to her elders,
reminded him that, as yet, he had heard no details of that night's
escapade when his beloved Monty had so wonderfully come out safe from
peril of death. This had been some days before, and rumor had it that
the lad was still confined a prisoner in his chamber. Whether because of
real