been sick, and not the lady. If
you've no objection, marm, Ben Benson 'll sarve these ere fellows
hisself, for the brook hasn't got another of the same sort, if he beat
brush for 'em a week."

"You are always kind," answered Mabel, "and it won't be the first time
you have turned cook in my behalf. Do you remember, Ben, doing like
services for me in Spain, years ago, when you insisted on leaving the
ship, and turning courier for us all?"

"Don't I, now?" said Ben, and his face brightened all over. "Didn't Ben
Benson? He was a smartish youngster then. Didn't he use to scour their
skillets and sasepans, to git the garlic out on 'em? But it wasn't of no
use, that ere garlic strikes through and through even hard iron in them
countries, and a'most everything you touch tastes on it, but the hard
biled eggs that had tough shells to 'em, as I used to bile for you and
the poor sick lady--they stood out agin it."

Mabel was looking sadly downward, and a troubled shadow came to her face
as she murmured--

"Poor lady--poor lady! How she suffered, and yet how completely her
disease baffled the Spanish physicians! That was a hard death."

Ben drew close to his mistress as she spoke. A strange meaning was in
his glance, as he said, impressively--

"Lady, that was a strange death. I've seen consumption enough, but it
wasn't what ailed _her_!"

Mabel lifted her eyes and looked anxiously at the honest face bent
toward her. "How can you think so, Benson?" she said.

"Because I know who gave that lady her medicine o'nights, when you and
the rest on 'em were in bed, and fast asleep; and I know that one time,
at any rate, it wasn't of the same color or taste as that the doctor
left, and she give it ten times when he told her once. I didn't think
much about it at the time, but since then, it's constantly a-coming into
my head."

Mabel turned deathly pale, and, yielding to a sudden faintness, sat
down.

"You do not think--you cannot think that there was really any neglect?"

"I didn't say nothing about neglect, marm--there wasn't much of that,
any how, for the poor lady never had a minute to herself. That ere
cream-colored gal was always a-hanging over her like a pison vine, and
the more she tended her, the sicker she grew--anybody with an eye to the
windward, could see that without a glass."

"Benson, you surprise--you pain me!" cried Mabel, with sudden energy.
"Great Heavens, what could have put this wild idea into your head?"