To all this Solomon listened in silence, without saying a word. He stood with his hands clasped together, with his eyes fixed at times on Bart, and at times half closed, while his lips kept muttering low, inaudible words. At length, however, his face and manner underwent a change. He started back, his eyes were fixed on something in the distance, and that same expression of terror came over his face which Bart had seen upon it when he first accosted him. At this Bart turned instinctively to see what it was that inspired such terror in the mind of Solomon. He saw a colored lady--tall, gaunt, with a turban on her brow of flaming red, with a look of fury on her face, and a broom in her hand, which she was brandishing wildly. She came with great strides at a run, and was evidently coming towards them. Bart’s first idea was, that she might be a mad woman, and he had a vague impulse to run; but the next instant his mind connected this woman with Solomon, and suggested her as the cause of his fear. As for Solomon, he was now quite beside himself with terror. His hands fell nerveless by his sides, his jaw dropped, his head shook as with a palsy, his knees knocked together, he seemed scarce able to stand erect, and could not utter one single word; all the while his eyes were fixed on the advancing Fury with the flaming turban, and his look was the look of one who expected instant annihilation. The Fury of the flaming turban drew nearer. Her course showed that she had emerged from the house on the opposite side of the road. As she rushed on, and as she brandished her broom, she howled out the most terrible threats against somebody, which somebody Bart now supposed must be Solomon, and at once, full of pity, determined to defend the old man from her fury. He therefore stood in front of Solomon, and was just about to call to his servant to come and help him, when the idea struck him that the Flaming Fury seemed strangely familiar to him; and as she came yet nearer, he recognized her perfectly. To his utter bewilderment and unbounded amazement, the Flaming Fury turned out to be no other than one who, for the last few years, had been quite a visitor at his father’s kitchen, and a dependant on his father’s bounty. “Black Betsy” was the name by which she was known. A silvery voice, a truly humble and grateful mind, a meek and quiet spirit, a winning demeanor, a smile that always charmed every one upon whom it beamed,--such was the Black Betsy that was known and loved in the Damer kitchen. But what was this? What had happened? This Black Betsy? This Virago, this Terror, this Flaming Fury? This! Impossible. Yet there was the astounding fact. There was only one explanation. Black Betsy was mad! No, Bart, she was not mad; she was only drunk;--mad drunk, if you like, but not what is generally called mad.