"Why, what on earth ails the child?" exclaimed Mrs. Absalom. Nan was leaning back in the chair, her face very red, making an effort to fan herself with one little hand, and panting wildly. "Malindy!" Mrs. Absalom yelled to the cook, "run here an' fetch the camphire as you come! Ain't you comin'? The laws a massy on us! the child'll be cold and stiff before you start! Honey, what on earth ails you? Tell your Nonny. Has anybody pestered you? Ef they have, jest tell me the'r name, an' I'll foller 'em to the jumpin'-off place but what I'll frail 'em out. You Malindy! whyn't you come on? You'll go faster'n that to your own funeral." But when Malindy came with the camphor, and a dose of salts in a tumbler, Nan waved her away. "I don't want any physic, Nonny," she said, still panting, for her run had been a long one; "I'm just tired from running. And, oh, Nonny! I have something to tell you." "Well, my life!" exclaimed Mrs. Absalom indignantly, withdrawing her arms from around Nan, and rising to her feet. "A little more, an' you'd 'a' had me ready for my coolin'-board. I ain't had such a turn--not sence the day a nigger boy run in the gate an' tol' me the Yankees was a-hangin' Ab. An' all bekaze you've hatched out some rigamarole that nobody on the green earth would 'a' thought of but you." She fussed around a little, and was for going about the various unnecessary duties she imposed on herself; but Nan protested. "Please, Nonny, wait until I tell you." Thereupon Nan told as well as she could of the conversation she and Gabriel had overheard in town, and the recital gave Mrs. Absalom a more serious feeling than she had had in many a day. Her muscular arms, bare to the elbow, were folded across her ample bosom, and she seemed to be glaring at Nan with a frown on her face, but she was thinking. "Well," she said with a sigh, "I knowed there was gwine to be trouble of some kind--old Billy Sanders went by here this mornin' as drunk as a lord." "Drunk!" cried Nan with blanched face. "Well, sorter tollerbul how-come-you-so. The last time old Billy was drunk, was when sesaytion was fetched on. Ev'ry time he runs a straw in a jimmy-john, he fishes up trouble. An' my dream's out. I dremp last night that a wooden-leg man come to the door, an' ast me for a pair of shoes. I ast him what on earth he wanted wi' a pair, bein's he had but one foot. He said that the foot he didn't have was constant a-feelin' like it was cold, an' he allowed maybe it'd feel better ef it know'd that he had a shoe ready for it ag'in colder weather." "Oh, I hate him! I just naturally despise him!" cried Nan. When she was angry her face was pale, and it was very pale now. "Why do you hate the wooden-leg man, honey? It was all in a dream," said Mrs. Absalom, soothingly.