"'Bout tree weeks, I guess; haint set on no day. Let Miss Smith do that."
"And you'll have a wedding?"
"No, Miss Em'ly. For de lan' sake, you don't 'spect we's gwine into dat yere meetin' 'ouse for de folks to call it a nigger show, duz ye? We's too ole to be gwine roun' to be laf at."
"I didn't mean to plague you, Matthias; please excuse me," for he looked the least bit provoked. "I'll make some cake, though, and you'll want witnesses, so Louis and I can come, anyway."
"'Spect you two need to get used to dat yere ceremony more'n de rest of de folks yere; yas, you kin come."
Oh! how Louis laughed at this, saying:
"There, Emily, Matthias knows too much; look out for breakers when you talk to him."
The old man laughed heartily also, and left us to talk over the coming event.
"Two shipwrecked lives trying to keep close to the shore of content for the rest of the journey, that's what they are," said Louis, "and we will help them, and do God's service by ministering to their small needs, for 'Inasmuch as ye do it unto the least of these, ye do it unto me.'"
He had so many Scriptural quotations at his tongue's end nowadays, I often told him he would be a minister, I knew. Many of his days were spent in the society of Mr. Davis, and they read the Bible through together. Louis said the New Testament had great charms for him, and Mr. Davis said to Clara and myself when we called upon him, that the Scriptures had never been so blessed to his heart as now.