He was tall and sturdy, this Dennis De Vine; and though he could not have been described as handsome, his reddish hair and ruddy coloring, united with the glance of his blue eye and a certain good-humored Irish daring of expression, made his presence gay and attractive. Aunty Losh was quick to act on his suggestion, and they all went into the cabin, which despite its limited frontage spread out sufficiently, within, to afford rooms for the old woman and her two nephews.
"Now, aunty," said the girl, "the tarrapin is most ready, and I'll brew you a good cup of yaupon. I was just cutting some to dry when you came." And thereupon Adela, taking a handful of the seasoned leaves from their place of storage in a cupboard, swung the kettle from the fire and proceeded to infuse this local substitute for tea.
"My patience, but it's dear to my buddy and heart," Aunty Losh murmured, as she sipped from the smoking cup. "An' now tell me what's happened while I been away."
"Why, Sylv wrote you everything that happened hyar," Adela reminded her, in some surprise.
"Oh, I know, I know!" was the rejoinder. "But it didn't seem nachul-like when I had to have folks read it to me. I didn't mo'n half get it in."
"There ain't nothin' very novel," said Dennis, "except old Sukey strayed off on to the main yistiddy." Sukey was the cow.
"Sho! It'll allays be so, long as I live. Nothin' but stray and find, stray and find. Ye mout hev dug that ditch across the neck, Dennie, when ye knowed I wanted it so bad. If you'll do it one o' these near-comin' days, I'll knit ye a new pair o' socks."
The headland on which Aunty Losh's house had been built was connected with the main only by a narrow neck, and it was one of the grievances of her life that her cow and her two or three sheep, when turned loose to graze, could so easily make their way to the adjoining territory.
"I'm fearsome o' the tides," Dennis explained. "They run so strong that mebbe they'd cut a wider channel than you want, aunty. But I'll try it; I'll dig that ditch by-and-by—or arterward."
The talk then turned to other matters, and Miss Jessie Floyd was mentioned, the daughter of an ex-Confederate colonel who lived a few miles inland on an "estate" of some dozen acres, magnificently entitled "Fairleigh Park."