"I tell you all what," she said, "I means to 'sign my sitewation! 'deed me! I can't kill myself for dem as wouldn't even care 'nough for me to have a mass said for de 'pose o' my soul." "What do you mean?" asked Paul, angrily, for confinement, solitude, bad weather, and anxiety, had combined, to make him querulous, too. "I means how ef yer doesn't have a kivered way made from de house to de kitchen an' back ag'in, I gwine give up waitin' on de table, now min' I tell yer, 'deed me! an' now ef you likes, yer may jes' go an' tell Marse Rooster." "'Marse Rooster!' Will you ever give up that horrid nonsense. Why, you old--! Is my brother--is your master a barn-door chicken-cock, that you call him 'Rooster?'" asked the young man, snappishly. "Well, Shrooster, den, ef you wants me to wring my tongue in two. Ef people's sponsors in baptism will gib der chillun such heathen names, how de debbil any Christian 'oman gwine to twis' her tongue roun' it? I thanks my 'Vine Marster dat my sponsors in baptism named me arter de bressed an' holy S'int Jane--who has 'stained an' s'ported me all my days; an' 'ill detect now, dough you do try to break my poor ole heart long wid onkindness at my ole ages o' life! But what's de use o' talkin'--Sam's waystin'!" And so saying, Jenny gave the finishing touches to the arrangement of the table, and then seized the bell, and rang it with rather needless vigor and violence, to bring the scattered members of the family together. They came, slowly and singly, and drew around the table more like ghosts than living persons, a few remarks upon the storm, and then they sunk into silence--and as soon as the gloomy meal was over, one by one they dropped away from the room--first went poor Fanny, then Mr. Willcoxen, then Miriam. "Where are you going, Miriam?" asked Paul, as the latter was leaving the room. "To my chamber." And before he could farther question, or longer detain her, she pressed his hand and went out. And Paul, with a deep sigh and a strangely foreboding heart, sank back into his seat. When Miriam reached her bedroom, she carefully closed and locked the door, went to her bureau, opened the top-drawer, and took from it a small oblong mahogany glove-box. She unlocked the latter, and took out a small parcel, which she unwrapped and laid before her upon the bureau. It was the xyphias poniard.