“It’s splendid to do as I’m a mind to,” he said, one hot August morning, nearly three weeks after his mother’s departure, as with his box of worms upon the music stool, in the little room which ’Lina claimed as exclusively her own, he sat mending his long fish line, whistling merrily, and occasionally thrusting back from his forehead the mass of curling hair, which somewhat obstructed his vision. Around him upon the floor lay half a dozen dogs, some asleep, and others eyeing his movements curiously, as if they knew and appreciated what he was doing. “There isn’t a finer lot of dogs in Kentucky,” soliloquized the young man, as he ran his eye over them; “but wouldn’t my lady at Saratoga rave if she knew I’d taken her _boudoir_ for a kennel, and kept my bootjack, my blacking brush, and Sunday shirts all on her piano! Good place for them, so handy to get at, though I don’t suppose it’s quite the thing to live so like a savage. Halloo, Mug, what do _you_ want?” he asked, as a little mulatto girl appeared in the door. “Claib done _buy_ you this yer,” and the child handed him the letter from his mother, which had been to New Orleans and was forwarded from there. The first of it was full of affection for her boy, and Hugh felt his heart growing very tender as he read, but when he reached the point where poor, timid Mrs. Worthington tried to explain about Alice, making a wretched bungle, and showing plainly how much she was swayed by ’Lina, it began to harden at once. “What the plague!” he exclaimed as he read on, “Supposes I remember having heard her speak of her old school friend, _Alice Morton_? I don’t remember any such thing. Her daughter’s name’s _Alice_—_Alice Johnson_,” and Hugh for an instant turned white, so powerfully that name always affected him. Soon rallying, however, he continued, “Heiress to fifty thousand dollars. Unfortunate Alice Johnson! better be lying beside the Golden Haired; but what! actually coming to Spring Bank, a girl worth fifty thousand, the most refined, most elegant, most beautiful creature that ever was born, coming where _I_ am, without my consent, too! That’s cool upon my word!” and for a moment Hugh went off in a towering passion, declaring “he wouldn’t stand it,” and bringing his foot down upon the little bare toes of Muggins, crouched upon the floor beside him. Her loud outcry brought him to himself, and after quieting her as well as he could, he finished his mother’s letter, chafing terribly at the thought of a strange young lady being thrust upon him whether he would have her or not.