"No, no, you saucy scamp! I can't afford to feed you on diamonds from my sacred ring! Did you get your greedy nature from some sable Dodonean ancestress? If we had lived three thousand years ago, I might be superstitious, and construe your freak into an oracular protest against my engagement. Feathered augurs survive their shrines. Clear out! you heretic!"
As she tossed it into the garden and closed the window, the portiere of the library was drawn aside, and her maid approached, followed by a female figure draped in a shawl and wearing a lofty turban.
"Miss Leo, Aunt Dyce wants to see you on some particular business."
"Howdy do, Aunt Dyce? It is a long time since you paid us a visit. Justine, push up a chair for her, and then open the cages and let the birds out for an hour. What is the matter, Aunt Dyce, you look troubled? Sit down, and tell me your tribulations."
"Yes, Miss Leo, I am in deep waters; up to my chin in trouble, and my heart is dragging me down; for it's heavier 'an a bushel of lead. You don't remember your own ma, do you?"
"I wish I did; but I was only five months old when I lost her."
"Well, if she was living to-day, she would stretch her two hands and pull me out of muddy waves; and that's why I have come to you. You see, Miss Marcia and my young Mistiss, Miss Ellice, was bosom friends, playmates, and like sisters. They named their dolls after one another, and many a time your ma brought her wax doll to our house, for me to dress it just like Miss Ellice's, 'cause I was the seamstus in our family, and I always humored the childun about their doll clothes. They had their candy pullins, and their birthday frolics, and their shetlan' ponies no bigger 'an dogs, and, oh Lord! what blessed happy times them was! Now, your ma's in glory, and you is the richest belle in the State; and my poor young mistiss is in the worst puggatory, the one that comes before death; and her child, her daughter that oughter be living in style at 'Elm Bluff', like you are here, where is she? Where is she? Flung down among vilyans and mallyfactors, and the very off-scourings of creation, in the penitenchery! Tears to me like, if old mistiss is as high-headed and proud as she was in this world, her speerit would tear down the walls and set her grandchild free. When I saw that beautiful young thing beating her white hands agin the iron bars, it went to my heart like a carving knife, and—"
Dyce burst into tears, and covered her face with her apron, Leo patted her shoulder softly, and essayed to comfort her.
"Don't cry so bitterly; try to be hopeful. It is very, very sad, but if she is innocent, her stay in prison will be short."
"There ain't no 'ifs'—when it comes to 'cusing my mistiss' child of stealing and murdering. Suppose the sheriff was to light down here this minute, and grab you up and tell folks 'spectable witnesses swore you broke open your Uncle Mitchell's safe, and brained him with a handi'on? Would you think it friendly for people to say, if she didn't they will soon turn her aloose? Would that be any warm poultice to your hurt feelin's? It's the stinging shame and the awful, disgrace of being 'spicioned, that you never would forgive."