CHAPTER II.
IN WHICH THE TREASURE IS FOUND—AND LOST.
As no word has been handed down of the conversation that night between Olly and her sister-in-law, I fear the masculine reader must view their subsequent conduct in the light of Gabriel's abstract proportion. The feminine reader—to whose well-known sense of justice and readiness to acknowledge a characteristic weakness, I chiefly commend these pages—will of course require no further explanation, and will be quite ready to believe that the next morning Olly and Mrs. Conroy were apparently firm friends, and that Gabriel was incontinently snubbed by both of these ladies as he deserved.
"You don't treat July right," said Olly, one morning, to Gabriel, during five minutes that she had snatched from the inseparable company of Mrs. Conroy.
Gabriel opened his eyes in wonder. "I hain't been 'round the house much, because I allowed you and July didn't want my kempany," he began apologetically, "and ef it's shortness of provisions, I've fooled away so much time, Olly, in prospectin' that ledge that I had no time to clar up and get any dust. I reckon, may be the pork bar'l is low. But I'll fix thet straight soon, Olly, soon."
"But it ain't thet, Gabe—it ain't provisions—it's—it's—O! you ain't got no sabe ez a husband—thar!" burst out the direct Olly at last.
Without the least sign of resentment, Gabriel looked thoughtfully at his sister.
"Thet's so—I reckon thet is the thing. Not hevin' been married afore, and bein', so to speak, strange and green-handed, like as not I don't exactly come up to the views of a woman ez hez hed thet experience. And her husband a savang! a savang! Olly, and a larned man."
"You're as good as him!" ejaculated Olly, hastily, whose parts of speech were less accurately placed than her feelings, "and I reckon she loves you a heap better, Gabe. But you ain't quite lovin' enough," she added, as Gabriel started. "Why, thar was thet young couple thet came up from Simpson's last week, and stayed over at Mrs. Markle's. Thar was no end of the attentions thet thet man paid to thet thar woman—fixin' her shawl, histin' the winder and puttin' it down, and askin' after her health every five minnits—and they'd sit and sit, just like this,"——here Olly, in the interests of domestic felicity, improvised the favourite attitude of the bridegroom, as far as the great girth of Gabriel's waist and chest could be "clipped" by her small arms.