“He won’t get much sympathy from Miss Priscilla, I guess,” said Ranty. “I do think he believed every word of it.”
“To be sure he did,” said Ray; “and such an expression of utter wretchedness as his face wore when he went out, I never want to see again. It will be as good as a play to see him when he goes home, and tells Miss Priscilla.”
“I’m going there to spend the day,” said Pet. “Miss Priscilla can’t bear me, so I go there as often as I can. I’ll be able to tell you all about it when I come back.”
“You had better not,” said Ray. “There are two or three runaway niggers in the woods, and it’s dangerous for you to go alone.”
“Now, you might have known that would just make that intensely-disagreeable girl go,” said Ranty, rocking himself backward and forward in Erminie’s chair. “Tell her there’s danger anywhere, and there she’ll be sure to fly. The other day, some one told her the typhus fever was down at the quarters, and nothing would serve her but she must instantly make her appearance there, to see what it was like. Luckily, it turned out to be something else; but if it had been the fever, Nilla would have been a case by this time—and serve her right, too. It’s very distressing to a quiet, peaceable individual like myself,” said Master Ranty, pensively, leaning his head on his hand with a deep sigh. “But there’s no use in me exhorting her, she don’t mind in the least. I’ve talked to her like a father; I’ve preached to her on the evil of her ways till all was blue, I’ve lectured her time and again, like a pocket-edition of Chrysostom, and look at the result! I don’t expect to live out half my days ’long of that ’ere little limb, as our Dell says.”
And Master Ranty sighed deeply over the degeneracy of the human race in general, and Nilla in particular.
“Spoken like an oracle,” cried Ray; “but though Nilla won’t take your advice, as a general thing, I hope she’ll take mine.”
“No, I won’t!” was Miss Petronilla’s short, sharp and decisive reply. “I won’t take you nor your advice, neither! I’m just going to Dismal Hollow, and I’d like to see who’ll stop me!”
“Why, the half-starved niggers will,” said Ranty; “and, what’s more, they’ll swallow you, body and bones, and without salt, too, which will be adding insult to injury. They’ll find you sharp and arid enough, though, if that’s any consolation.”
“Indeed, Pet, I wouldn’t go if I were you,” said Erminie, anxiously.