hornpipe by herself,
tossing the thin translucent china, and rapping it with her knuckles
till it rang again. She had, however, a pang once when she saw Miss
Emma lunching with relish on cold sweet potato. She spent all the rest
of the day floating on the tide in an old abandoned scow secured by a
long rope to the bank, and afterwards wading up and down the bed of a
brook that ran into the river, until, having left a portion of her
provision, to be sure, at Aunt Zoe's cabin, she busied herself over a
fire out-of-doors, and served up at last before Miss Emma as savory a
little terrapin stew as ever simmered on coals, capering over her
success, and standing on her head in the midst of all her scattered
embers, afterwards, with pure delight. The next day she came in at noon
from the woods, a mile down the river-bank, with her own dark lips cased
and coated in golden sweets, and, after a wordy skirmish with the cook,
presented to Miss Emma a great cake of brown and fragrant honey from a
nest she had discovered and neglected in better seasons, and said
nothing about her half-dozen swollen and smarting stings. Mas'r Rob
having shouldered his gun and taken himself off, and Mas'r Andersen
having followed his example, but not his footsteps, long ago, there was
nobody to fill the deficiencies of the larder with game; and thus Flor,
with her traps and nets and devices, making her value felt every day,
became, for Miss Emma's sake, a petted person, was put on more generous
terms with those above her, and allowed a freedom of action that no
other servant on the place dreamed of desiring. Such consideration was
very acceptable to the girl, who was well content to go fasting herself
a whole day, provided Miss Emma condescended to her offerings, and, in
turn, vouchsafed her her friendship. She had no such daring aspirations
towards the beautiful Miss Agatha, young Mas'r Andersen's wife, and
admired her at an awful distance, never venturing to offer her a bit of
broiled lark, or set before her a dish of crabs,--beaming back with a
grin from ear to ear, if Miss Agatha so much as smiled on her, breaking
into the wildest of dances and shuffling out the shrillest of tunes
after every such incident. Moreover, Miss Agatha was hedged about with a
dignity of grief, and the indistinct pity given her made her safe from
other intrusion; for Mas'r Andersen, in bringing home a Northern wife,
had brought home Northern principles, and, in his sudden es