“I dunno, missus; Mas’r Hugh don nickname me _Muggins_, and every folks do that now. You know Mas’r Hugh? He done _rared_ when he read you’s comin’; do this way with his boot, ‘By George, Ad will sell the old hut yet without ’sultin’ me,’” and the little darkey’s fist came down upon the window sill in apt imitation of her master. A crimson flush overspread Alice’s face as she wondered if it were possible that the arrangements concerning her coming there had been made without reference to Hugh’s wishes. “It may be; he was away,” she sighed; then feeling an intense desire to know more, and being only a woman and mortal, she said to _Muggins_, walking round her in circles, with her fat arms folded upon her bosom, “Your master did not know I was coming till he returned from New Orleans and found his mother’s letter?” “Who tole you dat ar?” and Muggin’s face was perfectly comical in its bewilderment at what she deemed Alice’s foreknowledge. “But dat’s so. I hear Aunt Chloe say so, and how’t was right mean in Miss ’Lina. _I hate Miss ’Lina! Phew-ew!_” and Muggins’ face screwed itself into a look of such perfect disgust that Alice could not forbear laughing outright. “You should not hate any one, my child,” she said, while Muggins rejoined, “I can’t help it—none of us can; she’s so—mean—and so—low-flung, Claib says. She hain’t any _bizzens_ orderin’ us round nuther, and I will hate her!” “But, Muggins, the Bible teaches us to love those who treat us badly, who are _mean_, as you say.” “Who’s he?” and Muggins looked up quickly. “I never hearn tell of him afore, or, yes, I has. Thar’s an old wared out book in Mas’r Hugh’s chest, what he reads in every night, and oncet when I axes him what was it, he say ‘It’s a Bible, Mug.’ Dat’s what he calls me for short, _Mug_.” There was a warm spot now in Alice’s heart for Hugh. A man who read his Bible every night could not be very bad, and she blessed Mug for the cheering news, little dreaming whose Bible it was Hugh read, or whose curl of yellow hair served him for a book mark. Mug’s prying eyes had ferreted that out, too, and delighted with so attentive a listener as Alice, she continued: “Dat’s the thing, then, what teaches us to love the hatefuls. Mug don’t want to read him, though I reckon Mas’r Hugh done grow some better, for he hain’t been hoppin’ mad this good while, like he got at Miss ’Lina ’bout that dress and Miss Adah. He was awful then. He _swared_, he did.” “Muggins, you must not tell me these things of your master. It is not right,” Alice interposed and Muggins replied, “Well, then, I done took ’em back. He didn’t swared, but he do read the Bible, and he do kiss dat curl of yaller har what he keeps in it. I see him through the do’ and I hear him whisper ’bout Golden Har or somethin’ mighty like him.”