"Go away, old buzzing. Let Nina think what it was they used to do- -pa and grandma and aunt Eloise. I know now; grandma and auntie were proud of the Bernard blood, they said, and they called Petrea vulgar, and baby sister a brat; and pa--oh, Miggie, I reckon he was naughty to the new mother. He had a buzz in his head most every night, not like mine, but a buzz that he got at the dinner and the side-board, where they kept the bottles, and he struck her, I saw him, and Marie, she was here, too, she stepped between them, and called him a drunken, deceitful beast, and a heap more in French. Then one morning when he was gone to New Orleans, and would come home pretty soon, mother and Marie and Miggie went a visiting to Tallahassee, or somewhere, and they never came back again, though pa went after them as soon as he got home. Why didn't they, Miggie?" "Petrea was very unhappy here," Edith answered. "Mr. Bernard abused her, as did his haughty mother, and once when he was gone Petrea said she would go to Tallahassee to see a lady who had visited her at Sunnybank. So she went with Marie, and Miggie, then three years old, but did not stop in Tallahassee. They ran away to New York, where Marie's sister lived. Here Petrea was taken sick and died, making Marie promise that Miggie should never go back to her bad father and his proud family. And Marie, who hated them bitterly, all but Nina, kept her word. She wrote to Sunnybank that both were dead, and the letter was forwarded by your grandmother to Mr. Bernard, who had gone after his wife, but who lay drunk many days at a hotel. The letter sobered him, and as it contained Marie's address, he found her at last, crying bitterly for little Miggie, up stairs asleep, but he thought her in the coffin with her mother. Marie said so and he believed her, bringing the bodies back to Sunnybank, and burying them beneath the magnolias." "And built a great marble there with both their names cut on it," chimed in Nina, fearful lest any part of the story should be omitted. "Yes," returned Edith, "he raised a costly monument to their memory; but don't you wish to know what became of Miggie?" "Yes, yes, oh, yes, go on," was Nina's answer; and Edith continued, "Marie was too poor to take care of Miggie, and she put her in the Asylum." "The Asylum!" Nina fairly screamed. "Nina's baby sister in the nasty old Asylum. No, no, it ain't. I won't, I shan't listen to the naughty story," and the excited girl covered her head with a pillow. But Edith removed it gently, and with a few loving words quieted the little lady, who said again, "Go on."