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"And this was her own room, Phil; nothing in it has been moved, nothing changed; this is the same bird and garland chintz, matching the same wall-paper; this is the same old baid with its fo' ca'ved columns and its faded canopy, the same gilt mirror where she looked and saw reflected there the loveliest face in all the valley. . . . A child's face, Phil even a child's face when she drew aside her bridal veil to look. . . . Ah God " She sighed, looking down at her clasped hands, "if youth but knew if youth but knew!"
"Is you gwine in dyah?" asked the woman, as they approached the hut. "Hi! yes; 'tain' nuttin' gwine hu't you; an' you say Ephum say he be layin' in de baid?" he replied, his mind having evidently been busy on the subject. "An' mighty comical," she corrected him, with exactness born of apprehension. "Well? I 'feared he sick." "I ain' nuver been in dyah," she persisted.
"I knowed 'twuz comin' jez ez soon ez I lay eyes on 'er," she muttered, for she was an old family servant. "Dar ain' no use 'n tryin' ter come betweenst dem de good Lawd is done jine tergedder fur worse. A baid husban'! Hi! Dar ain't un 'oman erlive, I reckon, dat 'ouldn't ruther own a baid husban' den no husban' at all.
Then he turned and looked at Douglass with preternatural gravity: "I'm shore honahed, Miss Grace, with yuah commission! Yuh leave it to me! I'll see he gits he's milk regulah an' goes to hes leetle baid at seven every night. On yuah return I'll hand him oveh to you all wropped up in cotton bats, tied with pink ribbon like thet about yuah naick, thet is, purvidin' I kin rustle thu ribbon."
When Ah aisk 'im ain' he fraid keep ole thief he say, jesso: 'Dass all my fault, Xenophon; ought look you up long 'go; ought know long 'go you be cole dese baid nights. Reckon Ahm de thievenest one us two, Xenophon, keepin' all dis wood stock' up when you got none, he say, jesso. Tek me in; say he lahk a thief. Pay me sala'y. Feed me. Dass de main whut de Caips gone shot lais' night."
Now and then she caught herself sobbing, more out of shame and humiliation than in sadness, for had she not shot the man who stepped between her and death? What must he think of her? "He says yo' all 'd betteh go to baid, Miss Bev yo' highness," said Aunt Fanny after one of her trips. "Oh, he does, does he?" sniffed Beverly. "I'll go to bed when I please. Tell him so.
He say ole Marse Simcoe useter plug lead en silver right froo dat man dat want he darter, en dar was de hole en de light shin'in' froo hit. But de spook ain' min'in' a lil ting lak dat, he des come on all de same snoopin' roun' arter de ole man's darter. Den one mawnin' de ole man lay stiff en daid in he baid, he eyes starin' open ez ef he see sump'n he cudn't stan' no how.
The woman caught the contagion of his sympathy. "De chil'n say he mighty comical, an' he layin' down in de baid," she said. Ephraim rose from his seat. "Whar you gwine?" "I mus' go to see 'bout him," he said, simply. "Ain' you gwine finish eatin'?" "I gwine kyar dis to him." "Well, I kin cook you anurr when we come back," said his wife, with ready acquiescence.
I's sho Miss Milly done put you in this pretty lil' room kase she thought you'd like it, bein' so handy to the stairs an' all, an' the windy right over the baid so's you kin lay an 'look out at the trees an' flowers an' if there ain't a wishteria vine a comin' in the casement an' twinin' aroun' jes' like a pixture. I tell you Miss Ann, this here room becomes you powerful much.
"Luik there, my lord," cried Malcolm, " there's Colonsay Castel, 'at yer lordship gets yer name, I'm thinkin', an', ony gait, ane o' yer teetles frae. It maun be mony a hunner year sin' ever Colonsay baid intill 't!" Well might he say so! for they looked but saw nothing only cliff beyond cliff rising from a white fringed shore. Not a broken tower, not a ragged battlement invaded the horizon!
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