split outen de meetin'-house you wouldn' a
thought he was so tiahed."

Marston laughed loud and long at this. "Well, Mrs. Marston," he
bantered, "even Lize is showing a keener perception of the fitness of
things than you."

"There are some things I can afford to be excelled in by my husband
and my servants. For my part, I have no suspicion of Uncle Simon, and
no concern about him either one way or the other."

"'Scuse me, Miss M'ree," said Lize, "I didn' mean no ha'm to you, but
I ain' a trustin' ol' Brothah Simon, I tell you."

"I'm not blaming you, Eliza; you are sensible as far as you know."

"Ahem," said Mr. Marston.

Eliza went out mumbling to herself, and Mr. Marston confined his
attentions to his dinner; he chuckled just once, but Mrs. Marston met
his levity with something like a sniff.

On the first two Sundays that Uncle Simon was away from his
congregation nothing was known about his whereabouts. On the third
Sunday he was reported to have been seen making his way toward the
west plantation. Now what did this old man want there? The west
plantation, so called, was a part of the Marston domain, but the land
there was worked by a number of slaves which Mrs. Marston had brought
with her from Louisiana, where she had given up her father's gorgeous
home on the Bayou Lafourche, together with her proud name of Marie
St. Pierre for George Marston's love. There had been so many
bickerings between the Marston servants and the contingent from
Louisiana that the two sets had been separated, the old remaining on
the east side and the new ones going to the west. So, to those who had
been born on the soil the name of the west plantation became a
reproach. It was a synonym for all that was worldly, wicked and
unregenerate. The east plantation did not visit with the west. The
east gave a dance, the west did not attend. The Marstons and St.
Pierres in black did not intermarry. If a Marston died, a St. Pierre
did not sit up with him. And so the division had kept up for years.

It was hardly to be believed then that Uncle Simon Marston, the very
patriarch of the Marston flock, was visiting over the border. But on
another Sunday he was seen to go straight to the west plantation.

At her first opportunity Lize accosted him:--

"Look a-hyeah, Brothah Simon, whut's dis I been hyeahin' 'bout you,
huh?"

"Well, sis' Lize, I reckon you'll have to tell me dat yo' se'f, 'case
I do' know. Whut you been hyeahin'?"

"Brothah