Miss Nancy's face was furiously flushed, and her eyes gleamed steely. "Did he tell any more lies on me?" she demanded, when Mrs. Doggett paused for breath. "He said you bought a gobbler last year," went on her informer, in glib prevarication, "from Miss Maude Floss, on condition ef anytheng happened to her t'other one, you'd sell hit back to her, and hern died, and when you let her have hit back, you charged her three cents a week fer all the time you'd had hit, fer _turkey pasture_. "And he said after all he'd done fer you all, last winter, when he come back on a friendly visit, he wuz ordered off the place. Then he lit out on your Pa, and I never heerd the like in my life. "'Old Milton Jeemes,' he says, 'sets up to the world to be mighty religious, but he hain't got no Christianity, jest hypocrites before company. He's about as contrary and overbearin' as people gits to be in this world, a hard old party, a kind of a dog-man.' "'He's a bloomin' fer hell,' he says, 'and hell's a gittin' ready fer him right _now_!' "I says, 'Mr. Lindsay, somethin'll be sent on you fer that, and don't you fergit hit!' And I thought to myse'f ef I hated anybody like that, I'd have more respect'n to be a tryin' to talk to their daughter!" "Now wouldn't you?" fleered Miss Nancy: "wouldn't you?" "And talkin' about the brazen impudence o' men, he said: 'Ef I wuz to take a notion to Miss Lucy, they wouldn't be nothin' in my way thar--the old man couldn't keep her from havin' me--but I hain't tuck the notion yit. As fer old Nance--'" Mrs. Doggett had reached the climax of her narration, "'she'd jump at the chance o' me! Jest see how she does that old bachelor cousin of Archy Evans that lives there. He comes to see old man Jeemes sometimes, and you ort to see her fly about in her Sunday dress, a sayin', "Now Mr. Whitley," jest as fine as a bird twitterin'. She thenks he's got money.'" Miss Nancy could endure no more. "I've got to go!" she announced in a freezing voice, as she stalked off, leaving all farewells unsaid. Mrs. Doggett looked after her with a pleased expression. "Ef ever Miss Lucy Jeemes gits sight o' Mr. Lindsay ag'in," she said happily to herself, "hit'll be when Miss Nancy is a corpse, not before!" CHAPTER XI "MORE NIGHT RIDERS" "Painful the task is I do, which to you I know must be grievous." One afternoon in the last week of March, Mr. Doggett came into his yard with six mysterious envelopes in his hand. Mrs. Doggett pounced curiously upon them. "Diamont dyes! What you gona color with all them, Eph? You must be a thenkin' o' startin' up one them dyin' fact'rys!" Mr. Doggett grinned. "Them's Mr. Castle's pertection ag'in night riders, Ann! He had the laugh on me when the boys skeered me, week afore last, and now I got the laugh on him a leetle. He says, 'Doggett, hit looks so bad, them beeg white beds a layin' right thar alongside the road. Ef they wuz colored now, they wouldn't show nigh so plain!'