on, "Mam' Dyce" retained in
old age the scrupulous neatness which had characterized her youth, when
promoted to the post of seamstress and ladies' maid, she had ruled the
servants' realm at "Elm Bluff" with a sway as autocratic as that of
Catherine over the Muscovites. Her black calico dress, donned as
mourning for her master, was relieved by a white apron tied about the
ample waist; a snowy handkerchief was crossed over the vast bosom, and
a checked white and black turban skilfully wound in intricate folds
around her gray head, terminated in a peculiar knot, which was the
pride of her toilet. A beautiful spotted pointer dog with ears like
brown satin, was lying asleep near the fire, but suddenly he lifted his
head, rose, stretched himself and went to the door. A moment later it
opened, and the whilom major-domo, Abednego, came in; put his stick in
one corner, hung his hat on a wooden peg, and approached the fireplace.

"Well, ole man; you know I tole you so."

"You wimmen would ruther say that, than eat pound cake. Supposin' you
did tell me, what's the upshot?"

"That gimlet-eyed weasel is snuffing round you and me; but we won't
turn out to be spring chickens, ready picked."

"Which is to signify that Miss Angerline smells a mouse? Don't talk
parables, Dyce. What's she done now?"

"She is hankering after that hankchiff. 'Pears to me, if she only went
on four legs 'sted of two, she would sell high for a bloodhound."

"Great Nebuckadanzer! How did she find out?"

"Don't ax me; ax the witches what she has in cahoot. I always tole you,
she had the eyes of a cunjor, and she has sarched it out. Says she saw
you when you found it; which ain't true. Eavesdrapping is her trade;
she was fotch up on it, and her ears fit a key-hole, like a bung plugs
a barrel. She has eavesdrapped that hankchiff chat of our'n somehow.
Wuss than that, Bedney, she sot thar this evening and faced me down,
that I was hiding something else; that I picked up something on the
floor and hid it in my bosom, after the crowner's inquess. Sez I:
'Well, Miss Angerline, you had better sarch me and be done with it, if
you are the judge, and the jury, and the crowner, and the law, and have
got the job to run this case.' Sez she, a-squinting them venomous eyes
of her'n, till they looked like knitting needles red hot: 'I leave the
sarching to be done by the cunstable--when you are 'rested and
handcuffed for 'betting of murder.' Then my dander riz. Sez I, 'Cr