Just then Collonel Tiffton was announced, his face wearing an anxious look, and his voice trembling as he told how sick his Nell was, how sick they all were, and then spoke of Alice Johnson.
"She's the same girl I told you about the day I bought Rocket; some little kin to me, and that makes it queer why her mother should leave her to you. I knew she would not be happy at Saratoga, and so we wrote for her to visit us. She is on the road now, will be here day after to-morrow, and something must be done. She can't come to us without great inconvenience to ourselves and serious danger to her. Hugh, my boy, there's no other way—she must come to Spring Bank," and the old colonel laid his hand on that of Hugh, who looked at him aghast, but made no immediate reply.
"A pretty state of things, and a pretty place to bring a lady," he muttered, glancing ruefully around the room and enumerating the different articles he knew were out of place. "Fish worms, fishhooks, fishlines, bootjack, boot-blacking, and rifle, to say nothing of the dogs—and me!"
The last was said in a tone as if the "me" were the most objectionable part of the whole, as, indeed, Hugh thought it was.
"I wonder how I do look to persons wholly unprejudiced!" Hugh said, and turning to Muggins he asked what she thought of him.
"I thinks you berry nice. I likes you berry much," the child replied, and Hugh continued:
"Yes; but how do I look, I mean? What do I look like, a dandy or a scarecrow?"
Muggins regarded him for a moment curiously, and then replied:
"I'se dunno what kind of thing that dandy is, but I 'members dat yer scarecrow what Claib make out of mas'r's trouse's and coat, an' put up in de cherry tree. I thinks da look like Mas'r Hugh—yes, very much like!"
Hugh laughed long and loud, pinching Mug's dusky cheek, and bidding her run away.