“No! no!—it was my bonnet—but never mind, I can wear your old hat, you know!—it doesn’t matter for me!” “Well, now, by all that’s—” “Hush, hush, Carl! Don’t swear—he is our grandfather, you know; and besides,” she added, suddenly dropping her voice, “there are strangers up stairs.” “Strangers! What strangers?” “Two gentlemen who came in here out of the storm.” “Umph!” said the young man, dropping himself into the arm-chair and falling into deep thought, from which he was aroused by the voice of Kate, saying— “Carl, don’t sit down in your wet clothes; take those on the chair, and go in the shed and put them on. And make haste, please, Carl, because supper is nearly ready, and the gentlemen up stairs must be hungry.” The young man arose, with a heavy sigh, saying— “I’ll only change my jacket, that I can do here. Oh! Kate!” he continued, as he divested himself of his wet jacket, and drew on the other—“Oh! Kate! what between one thing and another this is no home for you! _Indeed, indeed_, every morning I go away from you with a heavy heart, and all day long I can hardly work for the dread that’s on my mind about you. If I could only find a place for you to wait on some lady, or to nurse a baby—but, Lord! what with the niggers there is never a place to be got here for a poor white girl.” “Oh, Carl, if you could get me the best place in the world—even a place to sew—I wouldn’t leave _him_. Why, Carl, it would break his heart. He would grieve himself to death!” “And better for him that he should be dead! And better for you and all concerned!” “Oh, don’t say so, Carl! Don’t say so! Come and look at him, and let the sight soften your heart to him,” said the girl, taking the youth’s hand, and drawing him to the bedside. “Look, now, at that poor old wrinkled face—it has not got very long to live, anyhow—and see the two or three thin, white hairs on his temples—and see the poor, _poor_ withered hands—so helpless! Oh! I think it is all so pitiful. And now see, he is asleep, but how much trouble there is on his poor old face—no, no! don’t say hard things of him, it cuts me to the heart! And, Carl, no matter how bad his fit may be, he never offers to hurt me or anything else. Only terror and horror is all that is on him! He is a gentle, harmless, poor old man. And I always pity him like I pity any one very ill.”