r sentence for her.

"La, Mr. Sanders! how'd you know that? But it's the truth: I ain't never
seen Ike sence that night."

"I know a heap more'n you think I do," Mr. Sanders remarked. "Hotchkiss
was talkin' to you at the gate thar when he was shot. What was he
sayin'?"

The woman was a bright mulatto, and, remembering her own designs and
desires so far as Hotchkiss was concerned, her face flushed and she
turned her eyes away. "Why, he wan't sayin' a word, hardly; I was doin'
all the talkin'. I was settin' on the step there, an' I seen him
passin', an' hollad at him. I ast him if he wouldn't have a drink of
cold water, an' he said he would, an' I took it out to the gate, an'
while I was talkin', they shot him. They certainly did."

"Did you ask Ike about it?" Mr. Sanders inquired.

"La! I ain't seen Ike sence that night," exclaimed Edie, flirting her
apron with a coquettish air that was by no means unbecoming.

"Now, Edie," said Mr. Sanders, with a frown to match the severity of his
voice, "you know as well as I do, that when you heard the pistol go off,
and saw what had happened, you run in the house an' flung your apern
over your head." It was a wild guess, but it was close to the truth.

"La, Mr. Sanders! you talk like you was watchin' me. 'Twa'n't my apern,
'twas my han's. I didn't have on no apern that night; I had on my Sunday
frock."

"An' you know jest as well as I do that Ike come in here an' stood over
you, an' said somethin' to you."

"No, sir; he didn't stand over me; I was here"--she illustrated his
position by her movements--"an' when Ike come in, he stood over there."

"What did he say?"

"He said," replied Edie, smiling to show her pretty teeth, "'If you want
him, go out there an' git him.' Yes, sir, he said that. La! I never
heard of a nigger killin' a white man on _that_ account; did you, Mr.
Sanders?"

"I don't know as I ever did," replied Mr. Sanders, regarding her with an
expression akin to pity. "But times has changed."

"They certainly has," said Edie. "I tell you what, Mr. Sanders, I don't
b'live Mr. Hotchkiss was a man." She looked up at Mr. Sanders, as she
made the remark. Catching his eye, she exclaimed--"I don't; I declare I
don't! I never will believe it." She gave a chirruping laugh, as she
made the remark.

It is to be doubted if, in the history of the world, a man ever had a
higher compliment paid to his devotion and his singleness of purpose.

As Mr. Sanders mounted his