wdy, Mis' Johnson?" said Jinny, as though she had just come up.
"How's Mister Johnson dis mawnin'? Speck he's bettah; I year he wuz."

"Yessum, Miss Jinny More, yessum. He's bettah, dat's a fac'; he's mighty
nigh 'bout well agin, Mister Johnson is, tank de Lawd!"

"Save us! what mistering and missussing!" said Celestine to herself. She
watched them a moment longer, the colored people being still a profound
mystery to her. Then she emerged from her bush-bordered path, and making
her way to Mrs. Johnson, hurriedly delivered her message: Mrs. Harold
would like to have her come to the eyrie for a while, to act as nurse
for Mrs. Rutherford.

For that lady had met with an unfortunate accident; while stepping from
her phaeton she had fallen, no one knew how or why, and though the
phaeton was low and the ground soft, she had injured one of her knees so
seriously that it was feared that she would not be able to walk for some
time. Once fairly in bed and obliged to remain there, other symptoms had
developed themselves, so that she appeared to have, as the sympathetic
Betty (who had hurried up from East Angels) expressed it, "a little,
just a _little_, you know, of pretty much everything under the sun." In
this condition of affairs Katrina Rutherford naturally required a good
deal of waiting upon. And after the time had been divided between
Margaret and Celestine for several days and nights, Dr. Kirby
peremptorily intervened, and told Margaret to send for Looth Johnson,
"the best nurse in Gracias--the best, in fact, south of the city of
Charleston." Looth was Telano's mother: this was in her favor with
Celestine. But when the poor Vermont spinster was actually face to face
with her, it was difficult to believe that a person who danced with bare
black legs in the dusty road in the middle of the day could be either
the mother of the spotlessly attired Telano, or the sort of attendant
required by Mrs. Peter Rutherford. Dr. Kirby's orders, peremptory as
they were, Celestine would have freely disobeyed; but she did not dare
disobey them when they had been repeated by Margaret Harold.

"It's where your son is," she explained, desperately, forcing herself to
think of Telano's snowy jackets as she caught another glimpse of his
mother's toes.

"I knows whar 'tis," replied Looth, who had risen and dropped a
courtesy. And then, as Celestine departed, hurrying away with an almost
agitated step, "Telano 'lows she's a witch," she said to Ji