The old family servant was not particularly fond of her Mis' Linda's husband, and she looked forward to that crisis when the Fitzhugh blood would become heated. "Laws, honey," she made bold to say as she came forward and took the broom into her hard, muscular hands, "you go and set down. You's got no call to worry yo'se'f no-how 'bout housewuk." "But you have enough to do already, Rose," said Mrs. Meeks kindly, and turning her eyes, in which tears glistened, away from the withered, kindly old face. She dared not meet the look of sympathy, being in that humor when even a dignified woman may be melted into indiscreet confidences under the temptation of a silent, intelligent championship. Old Rose, however, began to sweep with those deft, smooth strokes that raise no dust, and with her head bent, she talked along in a seemingly purposeless fashion. "I's an ole coon, Mis' Linda; a little extry wuk ain't goin' to hurt me none. You take keer yo'se'f, honey, an' don' wuk yo' good looks away. An' don' fret 'em away, neither. You mus'n't wu'y yo'se'f, chile. Never was er _man_ wuth wu'yin' over. Ain't I had three husbands? De good Laud, He tuk Jim an' Abraham, an' den I, like a fool, tuk up wid Josh. An' he drunk an' drunk, an' den he cusses an' swear at me, an' me wu'kin' myse'f like er ole hoss, and den I jes gets up an' I say, 'Josh, I don' 'low no nigger ter cuss at me!' I says, 'You kin hev de inside of dis house an' I'll tek de outside,' and so I comes back ter de ole place, an' what Josh do? Why, Josh, he sober up, an' he 'gins ter see den w'at comes o' ugliness, an' he follow a'ter me, an' heah he is, gard'nin' fur Mr. Meeks. But when he comes home ter de shanty he don' cuss at me no mo'. Bes' way is jes ter let dese men know dere place, honey, once an' fur all." After old Rose had gone out with the dust-pan, Mrs. Meeks sat still in the rocking chair by the window, from which she could see quite a distance down the road; but her vision was turned too intensely inward to admit of her taking any interest in the few passers-by. Strange how a single sentence coming at the right time, will have a force that tons of inopportune advice has not. "Bes' way is jes ter let dese men know dere place, honey, once an' fur all." The sage, worldly-wise policy of this ignorant colored woman, to whom mother-wit had suggested methods culture could scarcely have rendered more effective, struck a chord in the heart of her mistress that would have failed to vibrate at any other moment. When causes of irritation are not present, one is simply amused in listening to recitals that piquantly set forth the temper of the subject, but when the mind is oppressed by a sense of long-smothered injuries, it turns a very different aspect toward experiences that appear similar to its own.