“Bless your heart! Don't I know that, dear! Here, you ain't got no more power nor me. But I WAS a-thinkin' that maybe you wouldn't think me too old for a nuss when you come to want one, and could manage to take me with you when you went home. I'se a heap of wear in me yit, and there ain't nothing 'bout babies I don't understand.” Mabel colored painfully. “If I had my way”--she began--then altered her plan of reply. “I could not enter into such an arrangement without consulting Mr. Dorrance, Mammy, and I am afraid he would not think as favorably of it as you and I do. He has been brought up with different ideas, you see.” “Um-HUM!” An interjection capable of as many and as varied meanings in the mouth of a colored woman of her stamp as was little Jean Baptiste's “altro!” It signified now--“I comprehend a great deal more than you want me to perceive--you poor, downtrodden angel!” “Um-HUM. I always did say he was his sister's own brother--for all they don't look a bit alike. What's born into a man never comes out!” “Mr. Dorrance is my husband, Mammy! I shall not let you speak disrespectfully of him. He does what he believes to be right and just,” returned Mabel, sternly. “I ain't a-goin' to arger that with you, my sugar-plum! You're right to stand up for him. I beg your pardon ef I've seemed sassy or hurt your feelin's. And I dar' say, there mayn't be nothin' wuss 'bout him nor his outside. And that don't matter so much, ef people's insides is clean and straight in the sight of the Lord. But HER outside is all that's decent about her, ef you'll listen to me--” “You are forgetting yourself again!” said Mabel, unable to suppress a smile. “Mrs. Aylett is your mistress--” The woman's queer behavior arrested the remonstrance. Stepping on tiptoe to the door she locked it, and approached her young mistress with an ostentatious attempt at treading lightly, shaking her head and pursing up her mouth in token of secrecy, while she fumbled in her bosom for something that seemed hard to get at. Drawing it forth at last she laid it in Mabel's lap--a small leather wallet, glossy with use, tattered at the corners, and tied up with a bit of dirty twine. “What is this, and what am I to do with it?” Mabel shrank from touching it, so foul and generally disreputable was its appearance. “Keep both your ears open, dearie, and I'll tell you all I know!”