"Shut your mouth, black Dinah," cried Amy authoritatively. "Ye's a pretty one to knock around a sleepin' nigger. You's been asleep yourself the last hour. S'pose we'd all been like you--you'd been kicked into a heap--but we ain't--and you never _did_ have a drop o' human kindness." "O, go 'way wid your quarreling. Dinah is jis like a firebran'; let her 'lone. What she got to do wid dis subjec-matter in han', I like a-know?" queried Aunt Chloe, swaying up to the mantle, filling her pipe with tobacco, and adding thereto the smallest glowing coal upon the hearth. Meantime, while she is preparing for a smoke, her companions have taken from their pockets, each a tin snuff-box and a mop, which mop consists of a small twig, chewed at the end into threads or fibers. This mop, wet with saliva, is thrust into the box of Scotch snuff, thence thrust into the mouth, and worked around upon the teeth much to the delight and constant spitting of the performer. This operation, so prevalent both among white and black women of the South, is called "_dipping_ snuff." Having followed our sable friends from grief to indignation, and from indignation to the charming amusement of snuff-dipping, we will enter the house and make acquaintance with its master. CHAPTER II. THE MASTER'S CONFERENCE WITH HIMSELF. It was late in September, and chilly for the season. A bright fire glowed upon the hearth in the "lady's chamber" at Kennons. Red curtains shaded the windows, and drooped in folds to the floor. Roses and green leaves seemed springing up out of the carpet to meet the light and warmth that radiated from the small semicircle behind the glittering fender. A bed hung with white curtains, a dressing bureau, with its fancy pincushion, and numerous cut-glass bottles of perfumery, a lounge covered with bright patchwork, and furnished with log-cabin cushions, easy-chairs and ottomans, together with the workstand and its inseparable little basket filled with every indispensable for needlework--all, all bore the trace of woman's hand. For nine years this had been the loved family-room of Duncan and Ellice Lisle. Now, Ellice was forever gone. Her foot had passed the threshold, to come in, to go out, no more. Her canary hung in the window; how could he sing on the morrow, missing _her_ accustomed voice? Her picture hung over the mantle, looking down with the old-time brightness upon the the solitary figures beforefire--Duncan and his child.