“Oh,” said Molly, drawing a long breath, her piquant face glowing with eager interest. She looked in something like awe at the beautiful home of these favorites of fortune. “I wish I was one of ‘de darters’!” she said, quaintly. “Hi, honey!” exclaimed old Uncle Abe, quite reproachfully. “Ole Mis’ Barry’s niece just as good as dem proud Laurenses.” “Yes, Uncle Abe,” answered Molly, demurely, the mischievous golden brown lights dancing in her big, dark eyes, and her red lips dimpling with mirth at the old negro’s family pride. Then she said, half-questioningly: “But of course the Laurens family are too proud to notice any of their neighbors?” Uncle Abe was too busy with his horses to reply for a moment or two, but presently he looked around quite crossly at his interlocutor, and said, severely: “Miss Looisy Barry, I t’ink you mus’ be c’azy. Don’t you know dere ain’t nobody better den de Barrys? I been livin’ long o’ dem as slave and freedman all my life, me an’ my ole ’oman, and de Barrys is always de top o’ de pot, or, as ole missus say, _cweam delly cweam_. Dat’s F’ench for top o’ de pot, you mus’ know, chile. As fo’ de Laurenses, dey hab always been hand and glove wif de Barrys! Umph, chile, you don’t seem to know nuffin’ ’tall ’bout de ’portance of your own fambly,” concluded old Abe, shaking his gray head disgustedly, and turning his attention wholly to his horses for they had left the gray stone house out of sight, and were descending a steep hill now. Molly Trueheart sat quite still with a distinctly wistful expression on her lovely girlish face. “What do I care about the importance of the Barrys? I know that one of them at least can stoop to selfish scheming!” she muttered, impatiently. “Oh, I wish I was well out of this scrape. It is not so funny masquerading as I thought it would be! I nearly exploded into a confession when the poor old soul gave me that money, little fraud that I am!” CHAPTER II. If she was a little fraud, as she declared herself to be, she had the frankest, honestest, prettiest face in the world, and many curious and admiring eyes turned on her as she alighted from the carriage on reaching Lewisburg and tripped lightly across the narrow pavement into the post-office. After she had duly registered the letter containing the forty dollars she went into a few stores, where she looked at summer silks; shook her dark, curly head in pretended disapproval of the prices, bought a paper of pins and a neck ribbon, then returned to the carriage before Uncle Abe, who was exchanging the compliments of the day with some gossips of his own color, was half ready to leave. “Lor’, Miss Looisy, you aine a-gwine yit?” “Yes, Uncle Abe.” “Dem hosses aine got rested yit, dat’s a fac’. Doane you want stay awhile, honey, and call on sum o’ de fust famblies o’ de town?” wheedlingly. The girl laughed merrily.