Mallston went striding through the car, and placed himself in an obedient attitude behind the partition. "Laws!" exclaimed Mrs. Stillman, standing between the camera, where the artist was burying his head under a black cloth, and the object to be photographed, "when we lived in Bartholomew county--'twas the year after we moved f'm Johnson county--Foster and John they was little fellers then, and I did want the'r picters that bad, so I did. But the'r pap he 'lowed it was a waste o' money. Pore man! he was a mighty hard worker: he'd go a mile'd to make a cent, and then he'd lose it all with bad management, so he would. But I had easy times them days, with everything to my han': I spun and wove all the jeans the men-folks wore, and we milked a dozen cows--" "Will you please move aside?" "Git out o' the way, Mis' Stillman: the man can't see through ye." "Oh!" exclaimed the old woman, jerking herself from the photographer's line of vision, "I didn't go fer to git in the way. But this ain't doin' my washin'," she added, moving toward the entrance. Here, on a little shelf, she found some tiles and brushes, which she took up to examine and hold before the other women, who were seated awaiting the picture-taking. "What's these here things?" "Artists' materials," replied the photographer, removing his head from under the black cloth, and that from the camera.--"Now, my little man, look straight at the hole in the box, and don't move.--That large brick house--keep perfectly quiet--across the field seems a good point to sketch from. Who lives there?" "Harbisons," replied the landlady. "Harbisons, eh? I suppose it was Miss Harbison I saw go past this morning?--Don't move, my little man." "I do' know," demurred the washer-woman, whose sole recreation in life was the faculty of speech. "I ain't seen Mis' Harbison to town to-day. They's him and her and the boys. Both the boys is away f'm home now. What-fer lookin' woman?" "It was a young lady in a wide hat." "Oh, that's Miss Gill: she's some kin to 'em. She's a school-teacher to Bunker Hill or Peru. Laws! I hate to see anybody so proud." "That's a good boy!" said the photographer. He removed his plate and carried it to the rear room, where he required the assistance of Mallston, who had watched the process with silent interest. Presently reappearing with the dripping negative, which he held for the women to see, he repeated incidentally, "Proud, is she, this Miss Gill?" "Yes, she is, kind o'," testified the neighbor who was called Jane.--"It's a reel good one, ain't it?" "If ye take as good as this all the time," cried the pleased landlady, holding off the negative and giving that excited drawl to the terminal word which may distinguish Kentuckians, for she claimed to be one, "every girl in town 'll be comin' after the'r picter-uh!" "Except the proud Miss Gill."