She was not without a certain kind of sprightliness that passed for intelligence; and she could by her adroitness of manoeuvre amble out of any difficulty. With a good education she would have made an excellent female pettifogger. She had all of the quickness and diablerie usually summed up in that most expressive American word, "_smartness_." I was a good deal vexed and grieved to find myself again a partner of hers in the discharge of my duties. It seemed to open my wounds afresh; for I remembered that her falsehood had gained me the severe castigation that had almost deprived me of life; and her laugh and jibe had rendered my suffering at the accursed post even more humiliating. Yet I knew better than to offer a demurrer to any arrangement that my mistress had made. One day as I was preparing to set the table for the noon meal, Lindy came to me and whispered, in an under-tone, "You finish the table, I am going out; and if Miss Jane or Tildy axes where I is, say dat I went to de kitchen to wash a dish." "Very well," I replied in my usual laconic style, and went on about my work. It was well for her that she had observed this precaution; for in a few moments Miss Tildy came in, and her first question was for Lindy. I answered as I had been desired to do. The reply appeared to satisfy her, and with the injunction (one she never failed to give), that I should do my work well and briskly, she left the room. After I had arranged the table to my satisfaction, I went to the kitchen to assist Aunt Polly in dishing up dinner. When I reached the kitchen I found Aunt Polly in a great quandary. The fire was not brisk enough to brown her bread, and she dared not send it to the table without its being as beautifully brown as a student's meditations. "Oh, child," she began, "do run somewhar' and git me a scrap or so of dry wood, so as to raise a smart little blaze to brown dis bread."