“Reckon how it’s Marster Livingstone’s carriage, ’case thar’s Tom on the box,” answered the girl, who had her own private reason for knowing Tom at any distance. “Mrs. Livingstone, I’ll venture to say,” groaned Mrs. Graham, burying her lace cap and flaxen hair still farther in the silken cushions. “Just because I stopped there a few days last summer, she thinks she must run here every week; and there’s no way of escaping her. Do shut that blind; it lets in so much light. There, would you think I’d been crying?” “Lor, no,” returned the stupid servant, “Lor, no; I should sooner think your eyes and face were swelled with _pisen_.” “The Lord help me,” exclaimed Mrs. Graham, “you don’t begin to know as much as poor Charlotte did. She was a jewel, and I don’t see anything what she wanted to die for, just as I had got her well trained; but that’s all the thanks I ever get for my goodness. Now go quick, and tell her I’ve got an excruciating headache.” “If you please, miss,” said the girl, trying in vain to master the big word, “if you please, give me somethin’ shorter, ’case I done forgit that ar, sartin’.” “Fool! Idiot!” exclaimed Mrs. Graham, hurling, for want of something better, one of her satin slippers at the woolly head, which dodged out of the door in time to avoid it. “Is your mistress at home?” asked Mrs. Livingstone, and Martha, uncertain what answer she was to make, replied, “Yes—no—I dun know, ’case she done driv me out afore I know’d whether she was at home or not.” “Martha, show the lady this way,” called out Mrs. Graham, who was listening. “Ah, Mrs. Livingstone, is it you. I’m glad to see you,” said she, half rising and shading her swollen eyes with her hand, as if the least effort were painful. “You must excuse my dishabille, for I am suffering from a bad headache, and when Martha said some one had come, I thought at first I could not see them, but you are always welcome. How have you been this long time, and why have you neglected me so, when you know how I must feel the change from Louisville, where I was constantly in society, to this dreary neighborhood?” and the lady lay back upon the sofa, exhausted with and astonished at her own eloquence. Mrs. Livingstone was quite delighted with her friend’s unusual cordiality, and seating herself in the large easy-chair, began to make herself very agreeable, offering to bathe Mrs. Graham’s aching head, which kind offer the lady declined, bethinking herself of sundry gray hairs, which a close inspection would single out from among her flaxen tresses. “Are your family all well?” she asked; to which Mrs. Livingstone replied that they were, at the same time speaking of her extreme loneliness since Mabel left them.