The old woman bridled to say many, but before she could speak there was a fervent challenge to answer: "Do you realize all I've got to attend to to-day?" The nurse's mouth opened but another question was shot into it: "Has anybody told about the _Quakeress_?" There was a limit to forbearance. "Now, Miss Ramsey Hayle, ef dey is tell it, aw ef dey hain't--to yo' ma--dat's all right an' beseemly. But fo' you, dat ain't no fitt'n' story fo' you to heah!" Ramsey stared from her towel with lips apart. "Why, you--I'm going to hear it!--all!--this day!--or, anyhow, this trip!--from--from--" She fell upon the nurse's shoulder, convulsed. "F'om who' is you gwine hear it? Stop, missie, stawp! Dat's madness, dat laughteh. De Bible say' so! F'm who'--? Lawd! yo' head's a-wett'n' my breas'-han'kercheh!" Ramsey drew up, her eyes dancing, but went into a new transport as she replied: "From the baby elephant!" "No, you don't, Miss Ramsey Hayle! No, you don't! An' besides, befo' you heah de story o' de _Quak'ess_ you want to heah de story o' Phyllis." XVI PHYLLIS From earliest childhood the Hugh whom it gave Ramsey such rapture to nickname had unconsciously worn the dim frown that seemed to her so droll because at once so scrutinous yet so appealing. To others that faint shade had never meant more than an inborn mental painstaking; a mind as steadily at work as the pulse; seemingly sluggish, really active. But Ramsey, in her stateroom, letting Joy dress her for all the Sabbath could mean afloat or ashore, could not accept such a thought. A feminine eagerness to read the masculine brow had promptly imputed to Hugh's a depth of mystery for which her romantic young soul demanded a romantic interpretation. Hence, mainly, her hunger for the story of the _Quakeress_. She had perceived, she thought, a relation between it and the clouded brow, and was bent on finding for the brow's owner as amazing a part in the tale as could be contrived by any piecing together of its facts which did not absolutely mutilate them. And these facts already she had begun to collect when by the mention of this "Phyllis" she discovered that old Joy had at least a share of the facts and under due pressure would yield them up. "Phyllis?" asked Ramsey, "who was Phyllis?" "Humph! Neveh hear o' Phyllis? Well, dey wuz reason fo' dat, too. Phyllis wuz de likeliest yalleh gal I eveh see, not-in-standin' she wuz my full fus' cousin." Now, one could be as dark as a sloe and yet have a cousin as yellow as a marigold, but Ramsey did not see it so. "How can that be?" she laughed, "when you are so out and out black?" The bare idea seemed too comical for human endurance. "I ain't no blackeh'n Gawd made me--oh, Lawd! missie, how I gwine button you up ef you shif' an' wriggle like dat? Phyllis wuz nuss to all de Co'teney chil'en. 'Caze dat same day when de new _Quak'ess_ come down de riveh wid dis same Mahs' Hugh, new-bawn, dah wuz yo' pa on his new boat, de _Conjuror_----"