"There's father," declared Frances with sudden energy, "he never—you know he never loved any one but my mother," she said the last words very tenderly.
"He's had his books," sagely, "an' he's had his chile, an' he's had me to look after de house.
"'Long when I was a gal," went on the old darkey, as if in pure reminiscence, "an 'oman if she didn't hab 'er fambly to look after, an' was too ole to go cavortin' 'roun', didn't hab nuthin' to do but sit erroun' an' stay in de pa's house or de brother's an' be tookin' cyar of; an' dey'd be wishin' all de time dey'd took dis one or dat one or any one, so's not to come to dis. But laws-a-me! if yuh don't git married nowadays, dyar's a plenty to be a-doin'! Dyar's Miss Robin— Honey, does yuh ebber specs to be married?"
She saw the indignant flash of Frances' eyes, and chuckled inwardly. She wouldn't be crying there long at that rate. The tears were gone now, and soon the marks of them would be.
"Does yuh think yuh'd like to git married?" protested the old woman remorselessly, "'cause, if yuh do 'tis time yuh was lookin' aroun'!"
"Dyar, ef dat don't fotch her," declared Susan to herself, "nuttin' will!" But it did.
Frances sat upright. She had a wholesome respect for matrimony, and the speech had told. "What do you mean?"
"Jes' what I says!" calmly. "Dyar's two or three young men Ise got my eye on; some o' dem is mighty nice!"
Susan knew, perfectly well, the only matrimonial danger she had ever feared for her darling had passed, but she shouldn't pine for that one, not as long as the old darkey had breath in her body.
"I tell yuh, Miss Frances," she said, "I suttenly is sorry fur young gals; dey goes erlong so bright an' so easy, eberything their way, an' when dey runs up all a-sudden on a big wall dat's got 'trouble' writ all ercross it, dey don't know how to get erroun' it nohow. Den, too, it suttenly does seem to me dey has some mighty hard questions to settle when dey know a mighty little, a mighty little."