s water for punch. The ruddy glare of the charcoal displayed
the confused and unpromising aspect of the room,--saddles, bridles,
several sorts of harness, riding-whips, overcoats, and various articles
of clothing, scattered up and down the room in confused variety; and the
dogs, of whom we have before spoken, had encamped themselves among them,
to suit their own taste and convenience.

Legree was just mixing himself a tumbler of punch, pouring his hot water
from a cracked and broken-nosed pitcher, grumbling, as he did so,

"Plague on that Sambo, to kick up this yer row between me and the new
hands! The fellow won't be fit to work for a week, now,--right in the
press of the season!"

"Yes, just like you," said a voice, behind his chair. It was the woman
Cassy, who had stolen upon his soliloquy.

"Hah! you she-devil! you've come back, have you?"

"Yes, I have," she said, coolly; "come to have my own way, too!"

"You lie, you jade! I'll be up to my word. Either behave yourself, or
stay down to the quarters, and fare and work with the rest."

"I'd rather, ten thousand times," said the woman, "live in the dirtiest
hole at the quarters, than be under your hoof!"

"But you _are_ under my hoof, for all that," said he, turning upon her,
with a savage grin; "that's one comfort. So, sit down here on my knee,
my dear, and hear to reason," said he, laying hold on her wrist.

"Simon Legree, take care!" said the woman, with a sharp flash of her
eye, a glance so wild and insane in its light as to be almost appalling.
"You're afraid of me, Simon," she said, deliberately; "and you've reason
to be! But be careful, for I've got the devil in me!"

The last words she whispered in a hissing tone, close to his ear.

"Get out! I believe, to my soul, you have!" said Legree, pushing her
from him, and looking uncomfortably at her. "After all, Cassy," he said,
"why can't you be friends with me, as you used to?"

"Used to!" said she, bitterly. She stopped short,--a word of choking
feelings, rising in her heart, kept her silent.

Cassy had always kept over Legree the kind of influence that a strong,
impassioned woman can ever keep over the most brutal man; but, of late,
she had grown more and more irritable and restless, under the hideous
yoke of her servitude, and her irritability, at times, broke out into
raving insanity; and this liability made her a sort of object of dread
to Legree, who had that superstitious horror of insane person