“’Deed, Miss Odalite, ’tain’t no use for you to take all dis yere trouble for to come ober yere ebery week to see as de rooms is all opened and aired and dried—’deed it ain’t. You can trust me—’deed you can. Now did you eber come ober yere on a Wednesday morning, and not find a fire kindled into ebery room in de house, and de windows all opened, ef it was clear? And likewise, if you war to come at night, you’d find the fires all out, and the windows all shut, and the rooms all dry as a toast.”
“I know I can trust you thoroughly, Molly, but you see I like to come. It seems to bring me nearer Le, you know,” Odalite replied, in her gentle and confiding way.
“Yes, honey, so it do, indeed. Well, it was a awful set-down to us w’en dat forriner come yere an’ cut Marse Le out, an’ him a married man, too, Lord save us!”
“Hush, Molly. You must not speak of that person to me,” said Odalite, sternly.
“Lord, honey, I ain’t a-blamin’ of you. Well I knows as you couldn’t help it. Well I knows as he give you witch powders, or summut, to make you like him whedder or no. W’ite people don’t believe nuffin ’bout dese witch powders, but we dem colored people we knows, honey. But now he is foun’ out an’ druv away, we dem all sees as you is a fo’gettin’ de nonsense, honey, ’cause he can’t give you no mo’ witch powders. Lor’! why, if it had been true love you feeled for him, you couldn’t a got ober it as soon as you has, eben if yer had foun’ him out to be de gran’ vilyun as he is, ’cause it would a took time. But as it war not true love, but only witch powders, you see you got ober it eber since he went away. Lor’! I knows about witch powders.”
“Please, Mollie,” pleaded Odalite.
But the negro woman, having mounted her hobby, rocked on:
“Neber mind, honey. You and Marse Le is young ’nough to spare t’ree years, an’ next time he come home, please de Lord, we’ll all ’joy a merry marridge, an’ you an’ him to come to housekeeping ’long of us.”
Odalite took leave, and went home. That was the only way in which she could escape the painful subject.
She found a letter from Le on her return. It was dated last from Rio de Janeiro. It contained the daily record of the young midshipman’s life on the man-of-war, and no end to the vows of love and constancy.