"What for, Jenny?" asked Mr. Thornton; "are you too tired to go on?" "No, dat's not it at all," answered the good woman; "but I wants to help Pheme to nurse poor Ercles. You see, Mas'r Henry, Pheme's no more nor a child in such matters; and she don't know how to nurse her husband at all. So I'd better stay." "A capital good thought, auntie," said the surgeon; "you and I have nursed many a one through a bad illness before, and you're a handy old girl." "Then," said Jenny, "we are close by ole Will's house, and that er hoss belongs to him. So, if you just take him off the hook, he'll go way home." "I'll see to that," said Doctor Christy. "You ride on to the sheriff," added he, addressing Mr. Thornton, Bessy, and myself, "and leave me and Jenny to manage the sick man, and the well horse, too." The sheriff's habitation was different from any Virginian house I had seen, both in site and appearance. It was a low, cottage-looking structure, extending over a considerable space of ground, with its pleasant verandah all round it, and not seated, as usual, upon the very edge of the cleared part of the plantation, but still sheltered by the original wood. It was raised upon a little knoll in the forest, perhaps two hundred yards wide, and that space only had been cleared in the vicinity of the house. It looked dry and comfortable, yet cool and shady, with the large trees devoid of underwood, forming a sort of grove all around it, and giving it much the aspect of an English forest-lodge. The sheriff himself came out to receive us as we rode up, followed by his sister, of whom he had spoken; the very reverse of himself in many respects; for, whereas he was fully six feet, two or three, in height, she was very diminutive in stature, and certainly made up for the sheriff's occasional taciturnity by her own good-humoured volubility of tongue. In her dress she was a perfect model for elderly ladies in a state of single blessedness. It was the perfection of trim neatness, from the beautiful little white apron to the small Quaker-looking cap. No superfluous ribbon--no gaudy colour--no fantastic ornament was there; but she put me in mind of some of those neat little brown birds, which are generally the sweetest songsters. We were all welcomed heartily; and a good deal of hospitable bustle took place to make arrangements for getting some more becoming clothes for Bessy and myself; the little old lady justly remarking that we looked more like fugitives from the penitentiary than anything else. Mr. Thornton, however, speedily set her anxieties on that score at rest.