"_He_ knows fast enough, only he _don't_ know," replied Betty, with a sly wink. "I was setting the table the other day, when Mrs. Millet read a letter from him to her husband. It seems he's got a fine place in the country, where he lives with his new bride. Poor thing, I hope he won't break her heart, as he did his first wife's. Well, he told how beautiful his place was, and how much money he had laid out on his garden, and hot-house, and things, and invited Mrs. Millet to come and see him; and then he said, 'he 'sposed Mrs. Ruth was getting on; he didn't know anything about her.'" "Know about de debbel!" exclaimed Gatty, throwing down the pepper castor; "wonder whose fault dat is, Betty? 'Spose all dese folks of ours, up stairs, will go to de bressed place? When I heard Massa Millet have prayers dis morning, I jess wanted to ask him dat. You 'member what our minister, Mr. Snowball, said las' Sunday, 'bout de parabola of Dives and Lazarus, hey?" "Parable," said Betty contemptuously; "Gatty, you are as ignorant as a hippopotamus. Come, see that steak now, done to a crisp; won't you catch it when you take it into breakfast. It is lucky I can cook and talk too." CHAPTER XLIII. "Something for you, ma'am," said the maid-of-all-work to Ruth, omitting the ceremony of a premonitory knock, as she opened the door. "A bunch of flowers! handsome enough for Queen Victory; and a basket of apples all done up in green leaves. It takes widders to get presents," said the girl, stowing away her tongue in her left cheek, as she partially closed the door. "Oh, how pretty!" exclaimed little Nettie, to whom those flowers were as fair as Eve's first view of Paradise. "Give me _one_ posy, mamma, only _one_;" and the little chubby hands were outstretched for a tempting rose-bud. "But, Nettie, dear, they are not for me," said Ruth; "there must be some mistake." "Not a bit, ma'am," said the girl, thrusting her head into the half-open door; "the boy said they were 'for Mrs. Ruth Hall,' as plain as the nose on my face; and that's plain enough, for I reckon I should have got married long ago, if it hadn't been for my big nose. He was a country boy like, with a ploughman's frock on, and was as spotted in the face as a tiger-lily."