. So, meeting,
on her way to the breakfast-room, the old negress who had been given
charge of Miss Deane through the night, she stopped her, and asked how
her patient was.

"Jes' pow'ful cross dis hyar mawnin', Miss Zoe," was the reply, in a
tone of disgust. "Dar isn't one ob de fambly dat would be makin' half
de fuss ef dey'd sprained bofe dey's ankles. Doan ye go nigh her,
honey, fear she bite yo' head off."

"Indeed I sha'n't, Aunt Phillis, if there's any danger of that," laughed
Zoe. "But as she can't jump up and run after me, I think I shall be
quite safe if I don't go within arm's-length of her sofa."

"She's pow'ful cross," repeated Aunt Phillis: "she done gone call dis
chile up time an' again fru de night; an' when I ax her, 'Whar yo'
misery at?' she say, 'In my ankle, ob c'ose, yo' ole fool you! Cayn't
yo' hab nuff sense to change de dressin'?'"

"Who is that has been so polite and complimentary to you, Aunt Phillis?"
cried a merry voice in their rear.

Ella was descending the stairway at whose foot they stood, as they
perceived, on turning at the sound of her voice.

"Good-morning, cousin: how bright and well you are looking!" said Zoe.

"Just as I feel. And how are you, Mrs. Travilla? I trust you did not
spend the night in crying over Ned's absence?" was the gay rejoinder.

"No, not nearly all of it," returned Zoe, catching her spirit of fun.

"Mawnin', Miss Ella," said the old nurse, dropping a courtesy. "'Twas
de lady what sprain her foot yisteday I was talkin' bout to Miss Zoe."

"Ah! how is she?"

"I doan' t'ink she gwine die dis day, Miss Ella," laughed the nurse,
"she so pow'ful cross; and dey do say folks is dat way when dey's
gittin' bettah."

"Yes, I have always heard it was a hopeful sign, if not an agreeable
one," Ella remarked, "Was that the breakfast-bell I heard just now?"

"Yes," said Zoe. "I hope you feel ready to do justice to your meal?"

As they seated themselves at the table, Zoe, glancing toward Edward's
vacant chair, remarked, with a sigh, that it seemed very lonely to sit
down without him.

"Well, now," said Ella, "I think it's quite nice to take a meal
occasionally without the presence of anybody of the masculine gender."

"Perhaps that is because you have never been married," said Zoe.

"Perhaps so," returned her cousin, laughing; "yet I don't think that can
be all that ails me, for I have heard married women express the same
opinion quite frequently. What shall we