"Yes, Mist," sings out Fly, in a shrill treble.
"Ken you see that little viper yet, or has he got drownded?"
"He's a-driftin' out'n de riber, ole Mist; shill I run and tell his folks when I puts der biscuits in de oben?" says Fly, straining her eyes looking out of the kitchen window.
"No, you sha'n't do no sich thing! if his folks don't think he's worth a-lookin' arter thimselves, I ain't a-goin' to put myself out noways 'bout it. Let him drown, ef he's a mind to, and perhaps they'll look closer arter the rest. A young 'un more or less ain't no great loss. Don't let them ere biscuits burn, you Fly! or it'll be wuss for you! I wish Georgia was here; it's time she was to hum."
"Quand un parle du diable on en voit le vue!" says a clear, musical voice, and the present Georgia, a tall, superbly formed girl, with the shining eyes, and glossy hair of her childhood, but with a higher bloom and brighter smile than that tempestuous childhood ever knew, enters and stands before her, her dark hair blown out by the wind that has sent a deeper glow to her dark crimson cheeks, and a more vivid light to her splendid eyes.
"Oh, you've come, hev you?" says Miss Jerusha, rather crossly, "and a talkin' of Hebrew and Greek, and sich other ungodly lingo, again. It's suthin' bad, I know, or you wouldn't be a sayin' of it in thim onchristian langergers. I allurs said nothin' good would come of your heavin' away of your time and larning thim. I know it ain't right; don't sound as if it war. I feel it in my bones that it ain't. Where hev you bin?"
"Over to Emily's," Georgia said, laughingly, as she snatched up Betsey Periwinkle, junior, and stroked her soft fur. "What did you want me for when I came in?"
"Oh," said Miss Jerusha, "it's all along of that little imp, Johnny Smith, as has been and gone and went out in a boat, and I expect is upsot and gone to the bottom afore this."
Georgia sprang to her feet in consternation.
"What! gone out in a boat! to-day! that child! Miss Jerusha, what do you mean?"