nd Mistress Rush has no idea of making a rush upon
Kennons and our good master."

"O, you poor innocent," quoth Chloe and Amy at the same time. "Haven't
we eyes? What's they for if not to see with? They ain't in the backs of
our heads neither. We've got ears too; we don't hear with our elbows.
What for did she bring nice things and pretties for Hubert? and what for
did she take such a wonderful interest in de poor baby? Bress us, is de
baby wake or sleep, or what is come of it? We's all forgettin' de dear
precious objec. Sakes alive, an' its nearly smuddered in its soft
blankets, worked so beau'fully wid its own moder's hand."

A sleeping-powder, administered to the three days' old infant had, for a
time, quieted its incessant cries. This sudden mention brought every
dark face to bend low over the cradle, which Bessie, the nurse, had
brought hither from the house, that she might share the gossip of her
companions.

Worn out with weeping and watching, Bessie lay prone and sleeping upon
the floor at the cradle's side. Satisfied that the baby still breathed,
Chloe, Amy, Margery, China and Dinah settled back into their seats, like
so many crows upon a branch.

Dinah, the last-named, had been thus far fast asleep; and provoked with
herself that she had lost a share of the gossip, she gave Bessie a
vigorous push with her foot as she passed her, not through charity, nor
yet through malice, but through a sudden spasm of ill-nature.

Bessie gave a groan and sat up. She gazed around wildly--slowly
comprehended the scene, the present, the past, and, with another groan,
flung herself upon the floor again.

"You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Dinah, to disturb Bessie in that
way," said China, between whom and Bessie was a warm friendship. "She
has cried so, and broken her heart."

"She needn't be in people's way, then--who's going 'round Robinhood's
barn for sake o' likes o' her?" said Dinah, complainingly.

"Shut your mouth, black Dinah," cried Amy authoritatively. "Ye's a
pretty one to knock around a sleepin' nigger. You's been asleep yourself
the last hour. S'pose we'd all been like you--you'd been kicked into a
heap--but we ain't--and you never _did_ have a drop o' human kindness."

"O, go 'way wid your quarreling. Dinah is jis like a firebran'; let her
'lone. What she got to do wid dis subjec-matter in han', I like a-know?"
queried Aunt Chloe, swaying up to the mantle, filling her pipe with
tobacco, and adding there