ugh one. She's been ailing these twenty
years. It will come to them soon, surely."

"Where did you say was her place?"

He pointed it out, on the other side of the creek. After a few moments'
consideration, I sauntered towards the ford. From his first mention of
this Mrs. C---- I recognized my father's heroine, and determined to see
her, at first from curiosity; but another reason was now added. If what
the man stated was true, this woman surely could not be aware of the
condition of almost pauperism to which these people were reduced whose
property she held. If the case were plainly set before her, she would at
least furnish means to save the poor woman's life whom I had just left,
etc., etc. Reasoning thus, I came to the creek, and picked my way over
on the stones raised about a foot above the water. The ground stretched
from the bank up to the house in a grassy slope set with one or two
alders and willows. It was a grazing farm. Rich meadows rolled away on
every side, except where a sugar-loaf-shaped hill rose abruptly in front
of me. The old Shepler mansion stood at its base. It was large, and,
with its out-houses, built of stone, solid, clean, and jail-like. The
absence of all look of comfort was curious,--not a curl of smoke from
the wide kitchen, no sleepy dog sunning himself, no flower in garden or
unshuttered window, the grass cleared away even from the well, and the
yellow clay left. Two or three stalwart negroes were gossiping over a
pile of half-sawed wood near where I stood. I had stopped but a moment,
when a shrill, rasping voice came across the creek, making the men jump
to their work with a will.

"No! I'll make my own way! I have crossed my own water-course for half a
century, and what is come to me to stop me now? I must see what this
fellow is staring about."

I turned and saw a man on the opposite bank, close to the water's edge,
remonstrating with a short, thin old woman about something. She made use
of violent gestures; her tones were acidulated into the essence of all
that was dogmatic and shrewish.

"Don't talk to me, Parker! If you want to know how I will cross the
ford, here!"

So saying, she squatted down on the ground, and removed her shoes and
stockings in a twinkling,--then, tucking them under her arm, made her
way over the stones with a chuckle as she touched the shore.

"Parker's a fool! Don't tire yourselves, I beg, Pike and Jerry! Now,
young Sir, what is _your_ errand?" facing m