"And she's always been----?" "Well-behaved, faithful, kind, and wise. That one terrible deed, which she says you know all about----" "I do." "It seemed to change the very foundations of her character, to convert her soul." "Yes," said Hugh, as if speaking from experience. "Yet she kept her high spirit. She would never put on a disguise. And really that was safest since she wasn't being looked for by any one. 'I'm no advertised runaway,' she said. Still she's never been foolhardy. She'd never have come--we'd never have brought her--aboard this boat could we have foreseen the mishap to her captain which decided you and your father and grandfather to come on her." So ran the story hurriedly, but before it had got thus far Hugh's attention, in spite of him, was divided. It was wise, we have implied, for Ramsey to take the exhorter while he was in a manageable humor. He had come to the roof with an improved regard, got by his fall in the cabin, for the "'Piscopalian play-actoh," and with brute shrewdness was glad to make an outward show of good-will to Gilmore, and accepted with avidity every pretty advance of Gid Hayle's "bodacious brick-top gal." Hugh could hear him answering Ramsey's inquiries regarding various pieces of river seen or unseen during the day. "Spanish-moss Ben'? Why, they calls it that by reason 'at when we-all used to come down the riveh in flatboats, that's whah we al'ays fus' see the moss a-swingin' f'om the trees. Yass, sawt o' like scalps f'om wigwam poles. An' that ho'pe us to know whah'bouts we 'uz at. We knowed we 'uz at Spanish-moss Ben'. Didn' we, Mr. play-actoh?" The actor would have said yes, but the fountain of information flowed straight on: "Yass, same as at Islan' Ten--aw Twenty--aw any numbeh, we knowed by count we 'uz that many islan's f'om whah the Ohio comes in. Ef that wah the tenth islan' we'd seed then we knowed that 'uz Islan' Ten aw whaheveh it wah, whetheh it wah a' islan' yit aw b'en j'inded on to the main sho' sence it got its numbeh." They were rounding Cypress Bend and Ramsey had asked another question. "Was this where you first used to see cypress woods?" "Thundeh, no! This gits h-its name by reason 'at they steals mo' millions o' dollahs wuth o' cyp'ess timbeh f'om the gove'ment out'n this ben' than any otheh on the whole Fatheh o' Watehs, es the Injins say. You know that, Mr. play-actoh. Lawd! all the places ain't name' alike. 'Way back down yondeh whah we met the _Troubado'_ this mawnin'----" "Oh!" moaned Ramsey, "another o' pop-a's boats!"