“Have they any neighbors at Oakwood, any families they are intimate with?” “Yes, thar’s the Leightons, to my way of thinkin’ quite as sot up as the Burtons, and thar place, Miss Maude say, is handsomer and bigger than the one to Oakwood.” “Oh, indeed, Mrs. Leighton must be a happy woman. Did you ever see her?” Edna asked, and Becky replied, “Thar ain’t no Miss Leighton; she’s Miss Churchill, married twicet; her oldest boy, Mr. Roy, owns the property, and is the nicest man I reckon you ever seen. He stayed to the hotel oncet a few weeks, and I done his washin’, ’case he couldn’t find nobody handy, and Marster Phil let me do it and keep the pay. He wore a clean shirt a day, and cuffs and collars, and white vests, and pocket handkerchiefs, and socks without end; and gave me seventy-five cents a dozen just as they run, which made me a nice handful of money.” “Yes,” Edna said, musingly; “I suppose he must be very rich? Is he the only child?” “Ne-oo,” and Aunt Becky spoke a little scornfully, while Edna moved so as to hide her burning face. She had reached the point at last, and her heart beat almost audibly as Aunt Becky continued: “Or he wasn’t the only child when they was here. Thar was a younger one, a Charles Churchill, who got killed on the railroad a spell ago. You should speak well of the dead, and I mean to; but I reckon he wasn’t of so much ’count in these yer parts as Master Roy.” “Did he do anything bad,” Edna asked, and her voice was very low and sad. “No, not bad, only wan’t of much ’count. He druv fast horses, and smoked all the time, and bragged about his money when he hadn’t a cent, and flirted with the girls awfully. Thar’s Miss Ruth Gardner, all of three years older than him, thought she should catch him sure, and little Marcia Belknap was fairly bewitched; and both on ’em cried when they heard he was dead, though he left a wife, the papers said, married that very day.” “Oh, dreadful,” and Edna groaned aloud, for she saw again that awful scene, and the white, still face upturned to the angry sky, and it seemed wrong to sit there and make no sign while Becky went on. “I hain’t seen Miss Maude since, so I don’t know nothin’ about his wife, who she was, nor whar she is. Down to the Leighton Place, maybe, though it’s been surmised that she warn’t much,—kind of poor white folksy, I reckon; and if that’s so, Miss Churchill ain’t a-goin’ to own her, ’case she’s mighty big feelin’, and turned up her nose at Miss Ruth, and took her boy home to git shet of her. But Miss Ruth is enough for her, and I’ve hearn she talked awful about that wife of Charlie’s, and said she jest wished she could see her long enough to tell her she had the best and fustest right to her husband. Oh, she’s a clipper, Miss Ruth is.”