“Are you bruised very much, my dear?” the old lady inquired, sympathetically, and Molly responded lugubriously:
“Black and blue all over!”
Both the negro women groaned in concert at this statement, and Mrs. Barry exclaimed:
“Oh, how dreadful to think of such a fall! It’s a mercy you were not killed outright. I forgot about the rats in the garret, or I never would have shut you up there. Ginny Ann, you go upstairs with the child, and let her have a warm bath, then rub her from head to foot in arnica—from head to foot; do you hear?”
“Yes, ole mis’, sartinly. Come on, Miss Lou, honey.”
“Yes, Ginny Ann. Good-night, Aunt Thalia. I’m sorry I gave you such a scare; and I’m so glad that you were good enough to forgive me,” Molly said, as she followed Ginny Ann from the room to the bath-room upstairs, where the old lady’s instructions were carried out to the letter.
“Oh, I feel so much better! Thank you, Ginny Ann,” she exclaimed, as the latter tucked her into her cool, white bed. “But I’m sorry to be so much trouble.”
“No trouble at tall, Miss Lou. I’se always been use to waiting on de Barrys. It’s my pleasure and my dooty,” Ginny Ann replied, with the elaborate politeness of the well-raised Virginia negro. Then she paused, and said, mysteriously: “Honey, doane you mine ole missis’ capers; her bark worser ’n her bite. She gwine make it up to you fo’ treatin’ you so bad.”
“Make it up to me?” said tired and sleepy Molly, drowsily; and then Ginny Ann got down on her knees by the bed and whispered the secret of the evening’s work among the trunks of finery, and of the maid’s trip into town for the summer silk.
“Lay low, honey, and doane say a word to ole missis, but sho’ as you born, she’s gwine take you off on a trip whar you’ll hab a fine time dancin’ and eberyt’ing; and I shouldn’t wonder, no, I shouldn’t, ef she marries you off to some nice young gemplum,” she concluded, exuberantly.