t
for nothing!" concluded the small woman, bigly.

"No, no, Liddy; you must stay!" said Bathsheba, dropping from
haughtiness to entreaty with capricious inconsequence. "You must not
notice my being in a taking just now. You are not as a servant--you
are a companion to me. Dear, dear--I don't know what I am doing
since this miserable ache of my heart has weighted and worn upon me
so! What shall I come to! I suppose I shall get further and further
into troubles. I wonder sometimes if I am doomed to die in the
Union. I am friendless enough, God knows!"

"I won't notice anything, nor will I leave you!" sobbed Liddy,
impulsively putting up her lips to Bathsheba's, and kissing her.

Then Bathsheba kissed Liddy, and all was smooth again.

"I don't often cry, do I, Lidd? but you have made tears come into my
eyes," she said, a smile shining through the moisture. "Try to think
him a good man, won't you, dear Liddy?"

"I will, miss, indeed."

"He is a sort of steady man in a wild way, you know. That's better
than to be as some are, wild in a steady way. I am afraid that's
how I am. And promise me to keep my secret--do, Liddy! And do not
let them know that I have been crying about him, because it will be
dreadful for me, and no good to him, poor thing!"

"Death's head himself shan't wring it from me, mistress, if I've
a mind to keep anything; and I'll always be your friend," replied
Liddy, emphatically, at the same time bringing a few more tears into
her own eyes, not from any particular necessity, but from an artistic
sense of making herself in keeping with the remainder of the picture,
which seems to influence women at such times. "I think God likes us
to be good friends, don't you?"

"Indeed I do."

"And, dear miss, you won't harry me and storm at me, will you?
because you seem to swell so tall as a lion then, and it frightens
me! Do you know, I fancy you would be a match for any man when you
are in one o' your takings."

"Never! do you?" said Bathsheba, slightly laughing, though somewhat
seriously alarmed by this Amazonian picture of herself. "I hope I am
not a bold sort of maid--mannish?" she continued with some anxiety.

"Oh no, not mannish; but so almighty womanish that 'tis getting on
that way sometimes. Ah! miss," she said, after having drawn her
breath very sadly in and sent it very sadly out, "I wish I had half
your failing that way. 'Tis a great protection to a poor maid in
these illegit'