"What on earth was you a talkin' to Mr. Lindsay about?" her sister asked her as she came in.
"About old Blackie," murmured Miss Lucy, obeying her mentor: "Mr. Lindsay asked me ef I thought she was a fallin' off in her milk, and I told him I didn't see that she was."
"I think your tongue needs oilin', ef hit took you all that time to git off them few words," Miss Nancy replied suspiciously.
Miss Lucy did not reply to this taunt, but slipping out into the kitchen, she hastily emptied the grounds from the coffee-pot into the ashbarrel, and pouring several tablespoonfuls of coffee berries in the hopper of the little coffee-mill, she carried it stealthily down into the dairy, where the sound would not reach her sister's ears, and ground the coffee quickly.
"He loves his coffee strong," she whispered to herself, as she poured the freshly ground coffee into the pot, with a look of determination that sat oddly upon her: "and Nancy sha'n't give him weak stuff made out of old grounds, tonight, nohow!"
Miss Nancy took care that Miss Lucy had no more words alone with Mr. Lindsay that evening, but when he took his lamp to retire, he found a little twisted slip of paper on the middle step of the stairway, that he read with satisfaction, and laid carefully in his pocket-book, while Miss Lucy went to sleep with her hand closed on a worn chased ring suspended about her neck with a little silken cord.
CHAPTER IX
"Sure Some Disaster Has Befell"
"The sun grew weary of guilding the palaces of Morad; the clouds of sorrow gathered around his head, and the tempest of hatred roared about his dwelling."