run away from
a home where she enjoyed all these privileges. It's that Indian blood,
Cousin Silence. It's a great mercy you and I have n't got any of it in
our veins! What can you expect of children that come from heathens and
savages? You can't lay it to yourself, Cousin Silence, if Myrtle Hazard
goes wrong"--

"The Lord will lay it to me,--the Lord will lay it to me," she moaned.
"Did n't he say to Cain, 'Where is Abel, thy brother?'"

Nurse Byloe was getting very red in the face. She had had about enough
of this talk between the two women. "I hope the Lard 'll take care of
Myrtle Hazard fust, if she's in trouble, 'n' wants help," she said;
"'n' then look out for them that comes next. Y' 're too suspicious, Miss
Badlam; y' 're too easy to believe stories. Myrtle Hazard was as pretty
a child and as good a child as ever I see, if you did n't rile her;
'n' d' d y' ever see one o' them hearty lively children, that had n't
a sperrit of its own? For my part, I'd rather handle one of 'em than a
dozen o' them little waxy, weak-eyed, slim-necked creturs that always do
what they tell 'em to, and die afore they're a dozen year old; and never
was the time when I've seen Myrtle Hazard, sence she was my baby, but
what it's always been, 'Good mornin', Miss Byloe,' and 'How do you do,
Miss Byloe? I'm so glad to see you.' The handsomest young woman, too, as
all the old folks will agree in tellin' you, s'ence the time o' Judith
Pride that was,--the Pride of the County they used to call her, for her
beauty. Her great-grandma, y' know, Miss Cynthy, married old King David
Withers. What I want to know is, whether anything has been heerd, and
jest what's been done about findin' the poor thing. How d' ye know she
has n't fell into the river? Have they fired cannon? They say that busts
the gall of drownded folks, and makes the corpse rise. Have they looked
in the woods everywhere? Don't believe no wrong of nobody, not till y'
must,--least of all of them that come o' the same folks, partly, and
has lived with yo all their days. I tell y', Myrtle Hazard's jest as
innocent of all what y' 've been thinkin' about,--bless the poor child;
she's got a soul that's as clean and sweet-well, as a pond-lily when it
fust opens of a mornin', without a speck on it no more than on the fust
pond-lily God Almighty ever made!"

That gave a turn to the two women's thoughts, and their handkerchiefs
went up to their faces. Nurse Byloe turned her eyes quickly on C