ty much, madam, but in fac', ef de trufe got to
be tol'----"

"It hasn't got to be told _me_, Luke, if I----"

"Oh, no, madam, o' co'se. I 'uz on'y gwine say--a-concernin'
Euonymus----"

I hurried off while the wife chided her good man: "Why don't you dess
hide all dem thing' in yo' heart like _dey_ used to do when d' angel
'pear' unto _dem_?"

Alone with Euonymus, as I whipped off my feminine garb and whirled into
the other, I began to say that however suddenly I might leave the
fugitives they must rest assured that I was not deserting them. To
which----

"Oh, my Lawd," Euonymus replied, "us know dat!"

We reached the pike again. "Rebecca, dismount. Hand me your bridle.
Luke, for you-all's better safety I'm going back and return these
horses. We may not see one another again----"

"Oh, Lawdy, Lawdy!" moaned Rebecca.

"In dis vain worl' you mean," Luke said.

"That's all. Come, don't waste time. You'd better walk on for a short
way in the pike before taking to the woods. Now go all night for all
you're worth. Good-by." I turned abruptly. But my led horse was
averse to abruptness, and all the family except the torpid Robelia
poured up their blessings and rained kisses on my very feet.

In my half-intelligent plan I intended first to stop at the house we
had gone by, and had reached the gate of its front lane when I met one
of its household, a lad of sixteen, on the pike.

"Yes, he had just seen the disabled coach."

I said that by business appointment with the lady who had just left the
coach I had gone to the next railway station northward in order to meet
her. That I had come down the turnpike on a hired horse and met her
and her servants pushing forward to our appointment as best they could.
Now, I said, our business, a law matter, was accomplished and she was
gone on on my hired horse. This span I was taking back to the stable
whence I had hired them for her in the morning.

The boy's graciousness shamed me through and through. "Why, certainly!
He would have the coach drawn up to the house before sunrise and would
keep it as long as I liked." He asked me in, but I went on to the
little railway town, repeated my tarradiddle at its "hotel," and soon
was asleep.

["'Tarradi'l','" said Mme. Castanado, "tha'z may be a species of
paternoster, I suppose, eh?"

"No," said Scipion, "I think tha'z juz' a fashion of speech that he
took a drink. I do that myself, going to bed."

Chester ex