like. In these sylvan surroundings Mr. Hamlin's
picturesque rusticity looked less incongruous and more Arcadian; the
young girl had lost some of her restraint with her confidences, and
lounging together side by side, without the least consciousness of any
sentiment in their words or actions, they nevertheless contrived to
impress the spectator with the idea that they were a charming pair of
pastoral lovers. So strong was this impression that, as they approached
Aunt Chloe's laundry, a pretty rose-covered cottage with an enormous
whitewashed barn-like extension in the rear, the black proprietress
herself, standing at the door, called her husband to come and look at
them, and flashed her white teeth in such unqualified commendation
and patronage that Mr. Hamlin, withdrawing himself from Sophy's side,
instantly charged down upon them.

"If you don't slide the lid back over that grinning box of dominoes of
yours and take it inside, I'll just carry Hannibal off with me," he said
in a quick whisper, with a half-wicked, half-mischievous glitter in his
brown eyes. "That young lady's--A LADY--do you understand? No riffraff
friend of mine, but a regular NUN--a saint--do you hear? So you just
stand back and let her take a good look round, and rest herself, until
she wants you." "Two black idiots, Miss Brown," he continued cheerfully
in a higher voice of explanation, as Sophy approached, "who think
because one of 'em used to shave me and the other saved my life they've
got a right to stand at their humble cottage door and frighten horses!"

So great was Mr. Hamlin's ascendency over his former servants that even
this ingenious pleasantry was received with every sign of affection
and appreciation of the humorist, and of the profound respect for his
companion. Aunt Chloe showed them effusively into her parlor, a small
but scrupulously neat and sweet-smelling apartment, inordinately
furnished with a huge mahogany centre-table and chairs, and the most
fragile and meretricious china and glass ornaments on the mantel. But
the three jasmine-edged lattice windows opened upon a homely garden of
old-fashioned herbs and flowers, and their fragrance filled the room.
The cleanest and starchiest of curtains, the most dazzling and whitest
of tidies and chair-covers, bespoke the adjacent laundry; indeed, the
whole cottage seemed to exhale the odors of lavender soap and freshly
ironed linen. Yet the cottage was large for the couple and their
assist