ntroduction to each other through the bridge of his nose.

"Oh, Brother Jacob," he chuckled, "what an executive help you air!
Captain, isn't he a perfect Marius?"

"Madam Cannon," observed the captain, "throws up the farm with this
payment, gentlemen. She has already moved her effects across the line to
son-in-law Johnson's. The bee-tree I know nothing about."

"Brother Jacob," spoke Isaac Cannon, "Moore takes the farm! Let him be
notified that his rent commences without day."

"Execution made, Brother Isaac," answered the Marius of the family.
"This morning, perceiving Patty Cannon about to move her effects, my
bailiff seized on her plough as security for the aforesaid bee-tree
spoiled, maimed, and destroyed, and Moore is ploughing to put in his
wheat with it already. Time is money to Isaac and Jacob Cannon."

"Ha, ha! what an executive comfort! Brother Jacob never adds an item to
profit and loss."

"Gentlemen," said Van Dorn, "I recommend you not to be charging
bee-trees to tenants in the vicinity of Johnson's Cross-roads. It's an
unusual item, and we are raising young men there who may not understand
it."

"Captain," said the elder Cannon, chuckling as if still in admiration of
Marius's subtlety, "I recollect now that our ferryman brought over a man
from Laurel this morning with some news. A woman with a broken shackle
reported there last night, and said she was the slave of Daniel Custis
of Princess Anne: she came from Broad Creek."

"Where did she go?"

"A Methodist preacher put her in his buggy and started to her master's
with her."

"Then she'll beat the wind," said Van Dorn; "these preachers are all
horse-jockeys, and can outswap the devil. _Hola! ya, ya!_ I must see to
this."

He strode out, with a cold eye glanced at Hulda.

"Come, young people," spoke the grand head of Jacob Cannon to Levin and
Hulda; "I will show you my museum."

He led the way to a warehouse overhanging the river and unlocked a door,
and told them to walk carefully till they could see in the dark of the
interior.

Levin kept Hulda's hand in his as they slowly saw emerge from the
shadows a great variety of dissimilar things heaped together, till the
house could hardly hold the vast aggregate of pots and kettles,
spinning-wheels and cradles, bedsteads and beds, harrows and ploughs,
chairs and gridirons, rakes and hoes, silhouettes and picture-frames,
hand-made quilts of calico and pillows of home-plucked geese feathers,
fis