d them little pitchers" (meaning vases) "which
Master Atherton done gin you? They'd look mighty fine up thar, full of
sprigs and posies."

Without hesitating a moment Anna brought the vases, and as she did not
know the exact time when her grandmother would arrive, she determined
to fill them with fresh flowers every morning.

"There, it looks a heap better, don't it, Carrie?" said she to her
sister, who chanced to be passing the door and looked in.

"You must be smart," answered Carrie, "taking so much pains just for
them; and as I live, if you haven't got those elegant vases that
Captain Atherton gave you for a birthday present! I know mother won't
like it. I mean to tell her;" and away she ran with the important news.

"There, I told you so," said she, quickly returning. "She says you
carry them straight back and let the room alone."

Anna began to cry, saying "the vases were hers, and she should think
she might do what she pleased with them."

"What did you go and blab for, you great for shame, you?" exclaimed
John Jr., suddenly appearing in the doorway, at the same time giving
Carrie a push, which set her to crying, and brought Mrs. Livingstone to
the scene of action,

"Can't my vases stay in here? Nobody'll hurt 'em, and they'll look so
pretty," said Anna.

"Can't that hateful John behave, and let me alone?" said Carrie.

"And can't Carrie quit sticking her nose in other folks' business?"
chimed in John Jr.

"Oh Lordy, what a fuss," said Corinda, while poor Mrs. Livingstone,
half distracted, took refuge under one of her dreadful headaches, and
telling her children "to fight their own battles and let her alone,"
returned to her room.

"A body'd s'pose marster's kin warn't of no kind of count," said Aunt
Milly, the head cook, to a group of sables, who, in the kitchen, were
discussing the furniture of the "trump'ry room," as they were in the
habit of calling the chamber set apart for Mrs. Nichols. "Yes, they
would s'pose they warn't of no kind o' count, the way miss goes on,
ravin' and tarin' and puttin' 'em off with low-lived truck that we
black folks wouldn't begin to tache with the tongs. Massy knows ef my
ole mother warn't dead and gone to kingdom come, I should never think
o' sarvin' her so, and I don't set myself up to be nothin' but an old
nigger, and a black one at that. But Lor' that's the way with more'n
half the white folks. They jine the church, and then they think they
done got a ti