“Oh! he goes there; but you know I don’t think she likes him; and it’s my opinion that Hiram he’s afeard of her as he is of Jacquelin Gray. He talks that soft way o’ hisn aroun’ her which he uses when he’s afeared o’ anyone. She’s gin them niggers the best clo’es you ever see—coats better then me or you or anyone aroun’ heah has seen since the war. What’s curious to me is that though she don’t seem to like niggers and git along with ’em easy-like and nat’ral as we all do, in another way she seems to kind o’ want to like ’em. It reminds me of takin’ physic: she takes ’em with a sort o’ gulp, but wants to take ’em and wants to make everybody else do it. “Now she’s been over yonder to the Bend and got ’em all stirred up, diggin’ dreens and whitewashin’ and cuttin’ poles for crosslay.” “She’ll be tryin’ to whitewash them,” said one of his auditors. “Well, by Jingo! if she sets her mind to it she’ll make it stick,” said Andy.” What gits me is the way she ain’t got some’n better to work on.” * * * * * Report said that Jacquelin was blossoming into a fine young lawyer. Steve Allen declared that his practice was doubling under Jacquelin’s devotion to the work—which was very well, as Steve, whether from contrariness or some other motive, was becoming a somewhat frequent visitor at Major Welch’s, these days. The General asserted that if Jacquelin stuck to his office and studied as assiduously as he was doing, he would be the most learned lawyer in the State. “But he’ll kill himself if he does not stop it. Why, I can see the difference in him already,” he declared to Miss Thomasia, solicitously. Miss Thomasia herself had seen the change in Jacquelin’s appearance since his return home. He was growing thin again, and, if not pale, was at least losing that ruddy hue of health which he had had on his arrival, and she expostulated with him, and tried even to get Blair to do the same; for Blair always had great influence with him, she told her. Blair, however, pooh-poohed the matter and said, indifferently, that she could not see any difference in him and thought he looked very well. Miss Thomasia shook her head. Blair did not use to be so hard-hearted. But, however this was, Jacquelin did not alter his course. The negroes had become so unruly, that, as Rupert was often away from home, and his aunt was left alone, he came home every night, though it was often late before he arrived; but early in the morning he returned to the Court-house and spent the day there in his office, rarely accepting an invitation or taking any holiday. When he and Blair met, which they did sometimes unavoidably, there was a return of the old constraint that had existed before he went away, and even with Steve he appeared to be growing silent and self-absorbed.