The child started up the stairs. His legs were so short that he had to mount to each step with both feet, one after the other, before he could climb to the next. These legs and feet and his arms were bare; the rest of his small, plump person was clad in a little jacket and very short breeches of pink calico. There were two long flights of stairs, and a shorter flight to the attic; the pink breeches had the air of climbing an Alp. Presently Chase took up the little toiler, candle and all. "You can tell me which way to go," he said. "What's your name?" "Pliny Abraham, sah." "Do you like Mr. Franklin?" "Mas' Franklin is de bes' body in dishyer house!" declared Pliny Abraham, shrilly. "The best what?" "De bes' body. We'se got twenty-five bodies now, boss. Sometimes dere's twenty-eight." "Oh, you mean boarders?" "Yassah. Bodies." Jared's room was in the attic. Pliny Abraham, who had been intensely serious, began to grin as his bearer, after putting him down, placed a dime in each of his little pink pockets; then he dashed out of the room, his black legs disappearing so suddenly that Chase had the curiosity to follow to the top of the stairs and look over. Pliny had evidently slid down the banisters; for he was already embarked on the broader rail of the flight below. Twenty minutes later there was a step on the stair; the door opened, and Jared Franklin came in. "They didn't tell you I was here?" said Chase, as they shook hands. "No. Mrs. Nightingale is usually very attentive; too much so, in fact; she's a bother!" Jared answered. "To-night, however, there's a party down below, and she has the supper on her mind." "Is Pliny Abraham to serve it?" "You've seen him, have you?" said Jared, who was now lighting a lamp. "Confounded smell--petroleum!" And he threw up the sash of the window. "I'm on my way up to New York, and I came across from Goldsborough on purpose to see you, Franklin, on a matter of business," Chase began. "Ruth isn't with me this time; she took a notion to go north by sea. Your mother and sister, I expect, will be seeing her off to-morrow from Charleston; then, after a little rest for Miss Dolly, they're to go to L'Hommedieu." "They'll stop here, won't they?" asked Jared, who was standing at the window in order to get air which was untainted by the odor of the lamp. "Perhaps," Chase answered. He knew that Dolly and her mother believed that by the time they should reach Raleigh, Jared would have already left. "Well, the gist of the matter, Franklin, is about this," he went on. And then, tilting his chair back so that his long legs should have more room, and with his thumbs in the pockets of his waistcoat, he began deliberately to lie.