He had just gone to sleep when there was a knock at the door.
"Who dat out dyah?" called Charity. "You niggers better go 'long to bed."
The knock was repeated.
"Who dat out dyah, I say?" queried Charity, testily. "Whyn't you go 'long 'way from dat do'? Torm, Torm, dee's somebody at de do'," she said, as the knocking was renewed.
Torm was hard to wake, but at length he got up and moved slowly to the door, grumbling to himself all the time.
When finally he undid the latch, Charity, who was in bed, heard him exclaim, "Well, name o' Gord! good Gord A'mighty!" and burst into a wild explosion of laughter.
In a second she too was outside of the door, and had Polly in her arms, laughing, jumping, hugging, and kissing her while Torm executed a series of caracoles around them.
"Whar Marse Bob?" asked both negroes, finally, in a breath.
"Hello, Torm! How are you, Mam' Charity?" called that gentleman, cheerily, coming up from where he had been fastening the horses; and Charity, suddenly mindful of her peculiar appearance and of the frosty air, "scuttled" into the house, conveying her young mistress with her.
Presently she came out dressed, and invited Bob in too. She insisted on giving them something to eat; but they had been to supper, and Polly was much too excited hearing about her uncle to eat anything. She cried a little at Charity's description of him, which she tried to keep Bob from seeing, but he saw it, and had to—however, when they got ready to go home, Polly insisted on going to the yard and up on the porch, and when there, she actually kissed the window-blind of the room whence issued a muffled snore suggestive at least of some degree of forgetfulness. She wanted Bob to kiss it too, but that gentleman apparently found something else more to his taste, and her entreaty was drowned in another sound.