"Y'sm, honey; I'se done got sumpin' in m' eye. I has sho'."
"Come here and let me look at it," said her mistress, reluctantly laying her book aside and taking a pencil from the table.
Dinah knelt before the woman, who made a careful examination of the suffering member.
"I see it!" she said; "don't move and I'll get it. There!"— carefully removing something with a corner of her immaculate handkerchief—"see?"
"Y'sm; thank'e, Miss Julia. Yah! yah! what a li'l spec to make such a rumpus! Looks like de Bible 'mote,' but, golly! it done feel mo' like de 'beam.' Yah! yah! yah!" laughed the negress, revealing two rows of dazzling teeth to an appreciative audience as she laboriously struggled to her feet.
"Feel all right now, aunty?" queried the spinster, as she carefully refolded her handkerchief.
"Y'sm, y'sm; I'm obleeg'd to 'e, Miss Julia. Lor'!" rubbing her knees and groaning, "de rumatism do work de mischief wi' dese yere po' ole bones." But Miss Julia had again become absorbed in her book and, apparently, did not hear.
"Got another new book, Miss Julia?" queried Dinah, after watching her mistress in silence for a moment.
"No, Dinah," replied the spinster, lifting a beatific glance and smile to the ceiling, "I am still engaged with my 'Philosophical, Psychological and Theosophical Research.'"
"Lor'!" and Dinah rolled her eyes with an awe-struck look over the audience. "I 'spec' some day, honey, you's so uplifted, you'll go soarin' up inter de clouds and outer sight, straight 'ter kingdom come—"