t him--the only earnest believer
mortified and embarrassed. Nor was he the less concerned as he found the
girl's dark eyes had rested once or twice upon him curiously. Zenobia
laughed too, and, lazily turning the chair around, dropped into it. "And
by this time George Lee's loungin' back in his chyar and smokin' his
cigyar somewhar in Sacramento," she added, stretching her feet out to
the fire, and suiting the action to the word with an imaginary cigar
between the long fingers of a thin and not over-clean hand.

"We cave, Zeenie!" said Rawlins, when their hilarity had subsided to a
more subdued and scarcely less flattering admiration of the unconcerned
goddess before them. "That's about the size of it. You kin rake down the
pile. I forgot you're an old friend of George's."

"He's a white man!" said the girl decidedly.

"Ye used to know him?" continued Rawlins.

"Once. Paw ain't in that line now," she said simply.

There was such a sublime unconsciousness of any moral degradation
involved in this allusion that even Hale accepted it without a shock.
She rose presently, and, going to the little sideboard, brought out
a number of glasses; these she handed to each of the party, and then,
producing a demijohn of whiskey, slung it dexterously and gracefully
over her arm, so that it rested on her elbow like a cradle, and, going
to each one in succession, filled their glasses. It obliged each one to
rise to accept the libation, and as Hale did so in his turn he met the
dark eyes of the girl full on his own. There was a pleased curiosity in
her glance that made this married man of thirty-five color as awkwardly
as a boy.

The tender of refreshment being understood as a tacit recognition of
their claims to a larger hospitality, all further restraint was removed.
Zenobia resumed her seat, and placing her elbow on the arm of her chair,
and her small round chin in her hand, looked thoughtfully in the fire.
"When I say George Lee's a white man, it ain't because I know him.
It's his general gait. Wot's he ever done that's underhanded or mean?
Nothin'! You kant show the poor man he's ever took a picayune from. When
he's helped himself to a pile it's been outer them banks or them express
companies, that think it mighty fine to bust up themselves, and swindle
the poor folks o' their last cent, and nobody talks o' huntin' THEM!
And does he keep their money? No; he passes it round among the boys that
help him, and they put it in circu