Dinah cast an exulting glance at Hetty, who, nothing daunted, came forward and said:
“Miss Marian was as likely a gal as thar was in Kentuck, and she, for one, should be as glad to see her back as some o’ them that made sich a fuss about it.”
“Playin’ ’possum,” whispered Dinah. “Them Higginses is up to that.”
Ben probably thought so too, for he paid no attention to Hetty, who, highly indignant started for Isabel, and told her “how Dinah and that fetch-ed peddler done spilt her character entirely.”
“Leave the room,” was Isabel’s haughty answer. “I am above what a poor negro and an ignorant Yankee can say.”
“For the dear Lord’s sake,” muttered the discomfited Hetty; “wonder if she ain’t a Yankee her own self. ’Spects how she done forgot whar she was raised,” and Hetty returned to the kitchen a warmer adherent of Marian than Dinah had ever been.
She, too, was very talkative now, and before nine o’clock Ben had learned all that he expected to learn, and much more. He had ascertained that no one had the slightest suspicion of the reason why Marian went away; that both Frederic and Isabel seemed unhappy; that Dinah and Hetty, too, believed “thar was somethin’ warin’ on thar minds;” that Frederic was discontented, and talked seriously of leaving Redstone Hall in care of an overseer, and moving, in the Autumn to his residence on the Hudson; that Hetty hoped he would, and Dinah hoped he wouldn’t, “’case if he did, it would be next to impossible to get a stroke o’ work out o’ them lazy Higginses.”
“I’ve got all I come for, I b’lieve,” was Ben’s mental comment, as he left the kitchen and returned to the dining room, where he found Frederic alone. “I’ll poke his ribs a little,” he thought, and helping himself to a chair, he began:
“Wall, Square, I’ve been out seein’ your niggers. Got a fine lot on ’em, and I shouldn’t wonder if you was wo’th considerable. Willed to you by your dad, or was it a kind of a dowry come by your wife? You’re a widower, they say;” and the gray eyes looked out at their corners, as Ben thought, “That’ll make him squirm, I guess.”
Frederic turned very white, but his voice was natural as he replied: