He was fairly silenced for the nonce. Elated by the execution of her sally, and not propitiated by his subsequent effort to ignore this passage at arms, she took full advantage of the opportunity to harass him which was presented when he announced himself an officer of the law, and demanded to know when and where she had seen Larrabee the last time. No perverse adult witness could have more dexterously baffled him with indefinite statements; and when he appealed from her to Joe, whose clumsy efforts to remember were hopelessly inadequate, her open glee was peculiarly tantalizing to Ross; for none can so resent a jest as a confirmed joker. Then it was that he made his fatal false step. "Look-a-hyar, Small Female, leetle ez ye be, I'll arrest you-uns an' kerry ye off ter jail, ef ye don't spry up an' answer my question." And then it was that Sis, bracing her small back, defied the majesty of the State of Tennessee as exemplified in Rodolphus Ross. So it came to open war. She was animated, too, by a partisan spirit for Larrabee. She remembered, with her infrequent approval, how he had conducted himself on the occasion in question; how quiet, how gentle, he was, how observant of the graces of her housekeeping, how commendatory of her dominion over Joe. Their conversation had since been often in her mind; she had rehearsed it, as she sat in the gloaming on her stool before the flickering fire, with the history of the Biblical worthies of which it was redundant. With no one else could she talk of these things. With quick adulation she had transformed Larrabee into a hero, and she longed to see him again. Her tongue, being feminine, could not be held altogether, but she told Ross naught which he desired to hear. She sounded the praises of Larrabee on many a key, and "disremembered" persistently whether it was Friday or Monday, or last week or week before, when she had seen him. "Waal, what war he a-doin' of hyar, ennyhows?" queried Ross. "Talkin'." "'Bout what, gal?" "'Bout no gal," Miss Taft responded, with a flash of the eye. "Waal, then,"--even he was fain to concede, in the hope of finding some thoroughfare in thus beating about the bush,--"'bout what boy?" She hesitated. She had not intended to cheapen the subject of her interest and enthusiasm by mention in this queer symposium. The talk with Larrabee had been in the nature of a confidence, as in the admiring canvass of mutual friends; she had a sense as if it were not the thing for general public and unworthy conversation. Nevertheless, her affinity for the subject constrained her. There was a light in her face, a placid softening of feature. Her flabby little colorless cheek mustered up a dimple. "'Bout Sam'l," she said, with a smile. "Sam'l who?" he demanded keenly. Sis hesitated, suddenly posed. "I--I disremember his--his--surname," she admitted. "Did ye see him with Lar'bee?" he asked, his big pertinacious eyes on her face, expectant of immediate developments.