es; fine ladies don't
work; only niggers works _har_. I reckon I'd rather be 'spectable than
work for a livin'."

I could but think how magnificently the lips of some of our glorious
Yankee girls would have curled had they have heard that remark, and have
seen the poor girl that made it, with her torn, worn, greasy dress; her
bare, dirty legs and feet, and her arms, neck, and face so thickly
encrusted with a layer of clayey mud that there was danger of
hydrophobia if she went near a wash-tub. Restraining my involuntary
disgust, I replied:

"We at the North think work is respectable. We do not look down on a man
or a woman for earning their daily bread. We all work."

"Yas, and that's the why ye'r all sech cowards," said the old woman.

"Cowards!" I said; "who tells you that?"

"My old man; he says one on our _boys_ can lick five of your Yankee
_men_."

"Perhaps so. Is your husband away from home?"

"Yas, him and our Cal. ar down to Charles'n."

"Cal. is your son, is he?"

"Yas, he's my oldest, and a likely lad he ar tu--he's twenty-one, and
his name are JOHN CAL'OUN MILLS. He's gone a troopin' it with his
fader."

"What, both gone and left you ladies here alone?"

"Yas, the Cunnel sed every man orter go, and they warn't to be ahind the
rest. The Cunnel--Cunnel J.--looks arter us while they is away."

"But I should think the Colonel looked after you poorly--giving you
nothing to eat."

"Oh! it's ben sech a storm to-day, the gals couldn't go for the vittles,
though 'tain't a great way. We'r on his plantation; this house is
his'n."

This last was agreeable news, and it occurred to me that if we were so
near the Colonel's we might push on, in spite of the storm, and get
there that night; so I said:

"Indeed; I'm going to the Colonel's. How far is his house from here?"

"A right smart six mile; it's at the Cross roads. Ye know the Cunnel, du
ye?"

"Oh, yes, I know him well. If his home is not more than six miles off, I
think we had better go on to-night. What do you say, Scip?"

"I reckon we'd better gwo, massa," replied the darky, who had spread my
travelling-shawl in the chimney-corner, and was seated on it, drying his
clothes.

"Ye'd better not," said the woman; "ye'd better stay har; thar's a right
smart run twixt har and the Cunnel's, and 'tain't safe to cross arter
dark."

"If that is so we'd better stay, Scip; don't you think so?" I said to
the darky.

"Jess as you say, massa. We got fru