“Fo’ de Lord, I hope de crabs may eat me ef tain’t so, jess as I tell you. Why, Lor’ bless my soul, ain’t I hear all the young gent’men say de same?” [general satisfaction.] “On course I has! I wish I may drop dead if I don’t b’lieve ole marster must a’ picked Richmond over pretty close.” The merriment elicited by this remark gave such pause to the old lady’s eloquence that Alice was enabled to put in a word. “But, Aunt Phœbe, tell me about the serenade?” Phœbe looked puzzled. “Tell us about the gentlemen’s serenade last night?” “Lor’, chile, ole marster don’t have none o’ dem high-fangled Richmond doin’s ’bout him; thar warn’t nothin’ but apple-toddy and eggnog.” “But the music, Aunt Phœbe?” persisted Alice, repressing a smile. “De music!” ejaculated Phœbe; “de music! Didn’t you hear it through de window? You didn’t?” And she clasped her hands, shut her eyes, and began rocking to and fro, her head nodding all the while with certain peculiar little jerks, “Umgh-umgh!—umgh-umgh!—umgh-umgh!” This inexplicable dumb-show she kept up some time. “Don’t talk, chillun; don’t talk—umgh-umgh!—don’t talk,—I axed Dick dis mornin’, says I, Dick, says I, huckum, you reckon, nobody never told ole marster as how Mr. Smith drawed sich a bow, says I?” “Mr. _Smith_!” exclaimed Alice, looking at the two girls with amazement in her wide eyes. The two girls nodded. “Yes, Mr. Smith was de very one. Phœbe never did hear de like, never in her born days. Sich a scrapin’ and a scratchin’, and sich a runnin’ up and down a fiddle, Phœbe never did see, though she thought she _had_ seen fiddlers in her time.” And she went on and gave such an account of the performance as you would not find in any musical journal. What did she know, poor soul, about technique, for example,—or breadth of phrasing, for the matter of that? “_Mr. Smith_!” reiterated Alice, with stark incredulity. “Dat was de very one!” Alice looked from one to another of the girls. “Did you ever!” looked they in turn. “I thought I should a’ died a-laughin’ at young Marse Billy Jones. When I seed him and all dem young gent’men a-scufflin’ and a-bumpin’ under dat table, oh, Lord, says I, how long! But when Marse Raleigh, he upsot into de fire, thinks I to myself, my legs surely is gwine for to gin way under me!—but Marse Charley, he cert’n’y do beat all. I reckon all you young mistisses was a-thinkin’ he had done gone and cut he finger when he let de knife fall and went for a rag? I be bound you did; but Lor’ me, nobody don’t never know what Marse Charley is up to. Dey tell me as how he knowed all along ’bout Mr. Smith playin’ on de fiddle; but he never let on even to ole marster; and I heard ’em all a-questionin’ him ’bout it; but Marse Charley, he jess laugh and laugh, sort o’ easy-like, and never tell ’em nothin’.” “Mr. Frobisher knew what a great musician Mr. Smith was?” asked Alice, her incredulity beginning to give way.