"Yes," said Fanny, "and I sometimes think I don't enjoy it half as well as Uncle Tiff. I'm sure he ought to have some comfort of us, for he worked hard enough for us—didn't you, Uncle Tiff?"
"Work! bress your soul, didn't I?" said Tiff, giggling all over in cheerful undulations. "Reckon I has worked, though I doesn't have much of it to do now; but I sees good of my work now'days,—does so. Mas'r Teddy, he's grow'd up tall, han'some young gen'leman, and he's in college,—only tink of dat! Laws! he can make de Latin fly! Dis yer's pretty good country, too. Dere's families round here dat's e'enamost up to old Virginny; and she goes with de best on 'em—dat she does."
Fanny now led Clayton into the house, and, while she tripped up stairs to change her morning dress, Tiff busied himself in arranging cake and fruit on a silver salver, as an apology for remaining in the room.
He seemed to consider the interval as an appropriate one for making some confidential communications on a subject that lay very near his heart. So, after looking out of the door with an air of great mystery, to ascertain that Miss Fanny was really gone, he returned to Clayton, and touched him on the elbow with an air of infinite secrecy and precaution.
"Dis yer an't to be spoken of out loud," he said. "I's ben mighty anxious; but, bress de Lord, I's come safely through; 'cause, yer see, I's found out he's a right likely man, beside being one of de very fustest old families in de state; and dese yer old families here 'bout as good as dey was in Virginny; and, when all's said and done, it's de men dat's de ting, after all; 'cause a gal can't marry all de generations back, if dey's ever so nice. But he's one of your likeliest men."
"What's his name?"
"Russel," said Tiff, lifting up his hand apprehensively to his mouth, and shouting out the name in a loud whisper. "I reckon he'll be here to-day, 'cause Mas'r Teddy's coming home, and going to bring him wid him; so please, Mas'r Clayton, you won't notice nothing; 'cause Miss Fanny she's jest like her ma,—she'll turn red clar up to her har, if a body only looks at her. See here," said Tiff, fumbling in his pocket, and producing a spectacle-case, out of which he extracted a portentous pair of gold-mounted spectacles; "see what he give me, de last time he's here. I puts dese yer on of a Sundays, when I sets down to read my Bible."
"Indeed," said Clayton; "have you learned, then, to read?"
"Why, no, honey, I don'no as I can rightly say dat I's larn'd to read, 'cause I's 'mazing slow at dat ar; but, den, I's larn'd all de best words, like Christ, Lord, and God, and dem ar; and whar dey's pretty thick, I makes out quite comfortable."
We shall not detain our readers with minute descriptions of how the day was spent: how Teddy came home from college a tall, handsome fellow, and rattled over Latin and Greek sentences in Tiff's delighted ears, who considered his learning as, without doubt, the eighth wonder of the world; nor how George Russel came with him, a handsome senior, just graduated; nor how Fanny blushed and trembled when she told her guardian her little secret, and, like other ladies, asked advice after she had made up her mind.