"Not a minute. Not one single minute longer than necessary to take me to Baltimore Street. Hurry. Fix your own self. Don't bother about me."
"Yes'm. I'se gwine hu'y. But dat yere plumber gempleman—what erbout leabin' him, to go rummagin' 'round, puttin' new fixin's in whe' ol' ones do? Ain't you-all done bettah wait a little spell, an' 'tend to him, yo'se'f? Hey, Miss Betty?"
Dinah had touched upon her mistress's own regret, but a regret swallowed by so much of a calamity that she put it aside and merely pointed to the door, as if further speech were useless.
It was more than five minutes before Ephraim drove his well-groomed horses out of the eagle-gate, but it was in a very short time for one who moved as slowly as he, and he turned his head for orders, with expectation of: "The Park."
Quite to the contrary the word was:
"Baltimore Street. Kidder & Kidder's."
"Hey? 'D you say Eutaw Place, er Moun' Ver'n Avenoo?" he inquired.
"There, boy. You're not half so deaf as you pretend. Drive to Kidder & Kidder's, and do it at once," she repeated with decision.
"Yas'm. But does yo' know, Miss Betty, erbout a man was sunstroke yestiddy, Baltimo' Street way? It sutenly is pow'ful wa'm."
Mrs. Cecil vouchsafed no further parley with her too devoted coachman, though Dinah took it upon herself to administer one reproof which her fellow servant coolly ignored.