"Why, Sylv wrote you everything that happened hyar," Adela reminded her, in some surprise. "Oh, I know, I know!" was the rejoinder. "But it didn't seem nachul-like when I had to have folks read it to me. I didn't mo'n half get it in." "There ain't nothin' very novel," said Dennis, "except old Sukey strayed off on to the main yistiddy." Sukey was the cow. "Sho! It'll allays be so, long as I live. Nothin' but stray and find, stray and find. Ye _mout_ hev dug that ditch across the neck, Dennie, when ye knowed I wanted it so bad. If you'll do it one o' these near-comin' days, I'll knit ye a new pair o' socks." The headland on which Aunty Losh's house had been built was connected with the main only by a narrow neck, and it was one of the grievances of her life that her cow and her two or three sheep, when turned loose to graze, could so easily make their way to the adjoining territory. "I'm fearsome o' the tides," Dennis explained. "They run so strong that mebbe they'd cut a wider channel than you want, aunty. But I'll try it; I'll dig that ditch by-and-by--or arterward." The talk then turned to other matters, and Miss Jessie Floyd was mentioned, the daughter of an ex-Confederate colonel who lived a few miles inland on an "estate" of some dozen acres, magnificently entitled "Fairleigh Park." "Miss Jessie's been down hyar two or three times," Adela said, "to buy bluefish and tarrapin for the manor; and she was very kind to the boys. Wasn't she, Dennie?" "That she was. She brought us jelly, one time." Dennis gently smacked his lips, in a reminiscent way. "I reckon she hain't brought any money, though," his aunt skeptically meditated, aloud. "Any company up at the manor?" "Why, yes," said the girl. "There's a young gen'l'man from the Nawth--a sort of English chap, I reckon; anyhow, he comes from New York. Mr. Lance; that's what they call him. I hain't seen him, but Dennis can tell you." "Certain shore," said Dennis. "That's his name. He's got idees about buildin' up. He wants to eddicate folks all round--sort of free snack of knowledge for everybody." "I reckon he'll be eddicating Miss Jessie to fall in love with him," Adela observed. "That's what." "Well, I sha'n't find no fault with him if he do," Dennis returned. "Only he needn't come down hyar away with his idees and all. 'Pears like him and Sylv 'ud be chancey to take up with one another, though." "What makes you think that?" Aunty Losh asked, with a trace of apprehension. "'Cause Sylv don't think of nothin' now but book-larnin', and he's been hevin' talks with that ar fellow." "Sylv'll be goin' off and leavin' us one o' these days," the old woman mused, as she put a match to the short pipe she had been filling for herself. "Oh no, aunty! You ortenter think he'd be so mean!" Deely protested, with energy.