"You nebbah could see tru a grin'-stone till I'd made a hole in it for yer. It's a wonder I tuk up wid such an ole fool as you is, Saturn. If yer eyes were wurf half as much as dem pertaters' eyes, yer could see for yerself. Hasn't masser swore agin dem city gentleum?" "He's swore--dat's so." "And he never would forgive one as would come and steal away his precious child--nebbah!" continued Pallas, lifting her rolling-pin threatingly at the bare thought. "If he war rich as gold, and lubbed her to distruction, 'twouldn't make a speck o' difference. He's jealous of the very ground she walks on; and he hates dem smoof-spoken city folks." "Do you suspec' he's a kidnapper--dat ar' vis'ter?" asked Saturn, his eyes growing still bigger, and looking toward the door as if he thought of the possibility of the handsome young stranger carrying _him_ off. "You is born a fool, and you can't help it. Put 'em 'taters in de pot, and mind yer own bisness. I want some more wood for dis fiah--immejetly!" When Pallas said "immejetly!" with that majestic air, there was nothing left for her worser half save to obey, and he retreated to the wood-pile with alacrity. On going out he run against Ben Perkins, who had been standing by the open door, unperceived, for the last five minutes. "Why, Ben, dat you?" asked Pallas, good-naturedly, not dreaming that he had overheard her confidential conversation. "Yes; I came up to the house to seen if Captain Wilde had any orders for the mill to-night. I see him when he passed the creek. Who's with him, Pallas?" The old colored woman gave a sudden sharp glance at the youth's troubled face. "It's a frien' for all I know. What bisness is it of yours to be askin'?" "I s'pose I hain't no business. Do you think it's likely it's anybody as expects to marry Miss Alice?" his voice trembled, and he looked at his boots as he asked the question. "Marry Miss Alice! What a simpl'un you is, Ben. Wha's that pickaninny but a chile yet, I'se like to know? a little chit as don't know nothin' 'bout marryin' nobody. 'Sides that, long as her fadder libs, she'll never marry, not if it war a king. He'd be mad as fury ef any one was to dar' to speak of such a thing. Humf! my pickaninny, indeed!" with an air of scorn and indignation deeply felt by the youth, whose face was flushing beneath the implied rebuke. "Ef you'll stop a few minutes, I'll give yer some of dese soda biscuits," she said, after a brief silence, secretly pitying a trouble at which she had shrewdly guessed, though she resented the audacity of the hope from which it sprang. "Dat ar' man-cook what gets up the vittles for the mill-hands can't make sech biscuits as mine. Stop now, and hab some, won't yer?"