hed ben or where he hadn't: all was,
he turned up at last all alive, and chipper as a skunk blackbird. Wal,
of course he made his court to Ruth; and the Gineral, he rather backed
him up in it; but Ruth she wouldn't have nothin' to say to him. Wal,
he come and took up his lodgin' at the Gineral's; and he was jest as
slippery as an eel, and sort o' slid into every thing, that was a goin'
on in the house and about it. He was here, and he was there, and he
was everywhere, and a havin' his say about this and that; and he got
everybody putty much under his thumb. And they used to say, he wound the
Gineral round and round like a skein o' yarn; but he couldn't come it
round Ruth.

"Wal, the Gineral said she shouldn't be forced; and Jeff, he was smooth
as satin, and said he'd be willing to wait as long as Jacob did for
Rachel. And so there he sot down, a watchin' as patient as a cat at a
mouse-hole; 'cause the Gineral he was thick-set and short-necked, and
drank pretty free, and was one o' the sort that might pop off any time.

"Wal, Mis' Sullivan, she beset the Gineral to make a provision for Ruth;
'cause she told him very sensible, that he'd brought her up in luxury,
and that it wa'n't fair not to settle somethin' on her; and so the
Gineral he said he'd make a will, and part the property equally between
them. And he says to Jeff, that, if he played his part as a young fellow
oughter know how, it would all come to him in the end; 'cause they
hadn't heard nothing from Captain Oliver for three or four years, and
folks about settled it that he must, be dead.

"Wal, the Gineral he got a letter about an estate that had come to him
in England; and he had to go over. Wal, livin' on the next estate, was
the very cousin of the Gineral's that he was to a married when they was
both young: the lands joined so that the grounds run together. What came
between them two nobody knows; but she never married, and there she was.
There was high words between the Gineral and Madam Sullivan about his
goin' over. She said there wa'n't no sort o' need on't, and he said
there was; and she said she hoped _she_ should be in her grave afore he
come back; and he said she might suit herself about that for all him.
That 'are was the story that the housekeeper told to Aunt Polly; and
Aunt Polly she told me. These 'ere squabbles somehow allers does kind o'
leak out one way or t'other. Anyhow, it was a house divided agin itself
at the Gineral's, when he was a