"If ministers are not," added Houghton.
"Exactly!"
"Oh, good gracious!" ejaculated the little matron in a tone of disgust; "no wonder they are ashamed—even the would-be honest ones are likely to incur suspicion, because, as you say, the exceptions are too few for consideration. A truly delightful spot you have chosen; the moral atmosphere would be a good field for a missionary, I should say—yet you would come here."
"Yes, and I am going to stay, too," said Hardy, in answer to this sisterly tirade. "We see or know but little of those poor devils or their useless lives—only we know by hearing that such a state of things exists. But as for quitting the country because of that—well, no, I could not be bought back to the East after knowing this glorious climate. Why, Tillie and I have picked out a tree to be buried under—a magnificent fellow that grows on the plateau above our house—just high enough to view the Four-mile Park from. She is as much in love with the freedom of these hills as I am."
"Poor child!" said his sister, commiseratingly; "to think of her being exiled in that park, twenty miles from a white woman!—didn't you say it was twenty?"
"Yes," and her brother leaned his back against the tree and smiled down at her; "it's twenty and a half, and the white woman whom you see at the end of the trip keeps a tavern—runs it herself, and sells the whisky that crosses the bar with an insinuating manner that is all her own. I've heard that she can sling an ugly fist in a scrimmage. She is a great favorite with the boys; the pet name they have for her is Holland Jin."
"Ugh! Horrible! And she—she allows them to call her so?"
"Certainly; you see it is a trade-mark for the house; her real name is Jane Holland."
"Holland Jin!" repeated his sister with a shudder. "Tillie, come here! Have you heard this? Hen has been telling me of your neighbor, Holland Jin. How do you expect to live always in this out-of-the-way place?"
Out from under the branches where their camp had just been located came Tillie, a charmingly plain little wife of less than a year—just her childishly curved red lips and her soft dark eyes to give attractiveness to her tanned face.