"This is your uncle, then? Where do you live?"
"I live at Nu Ark," answered the miss, taking down the black apron and looking from the depths of the bonnet, like a guinea-pig from his hole.
"If she had said 'the Ark' without the 'New,'" Vesta thought, "it would have seemed natural."
"Your uncle has a high fever," Vesta said, kindly; "he is not in danger, we think. It was right of you to come, however. Now take off your bonnet. What is your name?"
"Rhudy—I'm Rhudy Hullin, ma'am."
"Rhoda—Rhoda Holland, I think you say."
"Yes'm, Rhudy Hullin. I live crost the Pookamuke, on the Oushin side, out thar by Sinepuxin. I don't live in a great big town like Princess Anne; I live in Nu Ark."
At this the girl carefully extricated her head from the Conestoga scuttle, looked all over the bonnet with pride and anxiety, and then carefully laid it on the top of her uncle's hat-box.
"Uncle Meshach give it to me," she said, with a sly inclination towards the sick bed. "Misc Somers made it. Uncle, he bought all the stuff; Misc Somers draw'd it. Did you ever see anything like it?"
"Never," said Vesta.