"Miss Lucy didn't seem to make much o' his payin' sech disrespect to Callie, a sparkin' around, the way she treated him today! Old Brock'll never be tuck up fer bein' too sociable, but I wisht you could 'a' saw him today, a makin' up to the old man and Miss Lucy,--a settin' about with his lips primped up as innocent and delicate, like they'd never shet over nothin' stronger'n buttermilk in his life. He's tuck a cold--been over to Lexington this last week a layin' out drunk as is his common habit when he goes off on them trips, in fact, hit's what he goes fer,--and Miss Lucy wuz a honeyin' him up, a wishin' she could do somethin' fer his cold, and a huntin' up hoarhound and dried stuffs fer him to docter with. Made me sick!" "O Mr. Lindsay," placated Henrietty, "Miss Lucy thenks ever'body's all right and good. I heerd Mrs. Preacher Avery a sayin' to her one day--and she wuz jest a goin' by what Miss Lucy'd told her about 'em--'How fortunate,' she says, 'Miss Lucy, that your brothers and sisters all married good people, and in such good famblies!' "And that Grace that married the middle Jeemes boy, she's about as mean a person as anybody is allowed to be, to keep a livin'! She treated me and Jim's Ma, when we went to see Miss Lucy one day when she wuz a visitin' there, like we wuzn't no better'n the dirt under her feet. 'Lucy,' she says, and Ma and me heerd her when we wuz leavin' the yard, 'do you allow those tobacco people--those tenant people, to call on you?' "And another day she come down on the creek fishin'--her and them three holy-terrer chillern o' hers, and they happened to throw in their lines not fur from where me and Joey and little Katie wuz a fishin'. As soon as she saw us she drawed in her line, and says: 'Come, children, less go to a better place. I smell poor folks here!' Like poor people, ef they have any pride about keepin' clean, smell any different from rich folks!" "I reckon now," remarked Jim, dryly, "sence she's broke up her husband, so he had to quit his store and go to clerkin' in a meat-shop, she don't have to go outside her own door to 'smell poor folks'!" Henrietty laughed. "You see how hit is, Mr. Lindsay; you can't put no dependence on Miss Lucy's estimate o' people." "And we oughtn't to blame her fer that," said Mr. Lindsay: "the charity that 'thenks no evil' hain't so common in folks as to be a bad theng! Miss Lucy, she's a Christian, ef there ever wuz one in Kentucky, I reckon, and ef she wuz ever out o' humor I never knowed hit. But"--his face darkened, and though his voice did not rise above its ordinary soft murmur, there was a tremulous vibration in it that told that he was fiercely moved--"she's mighty fooled in old Brock, ef she thenks he's good!" "Hit's her cousin, Sim Willis, that's a makin' 'em thenk that," broke in Jim. "He considers Brock all right, because they both vote the same ticket, I reckon, and he hain't caught on yit to Brock's night habits."