you--kem thar too with Jim, and he allows, ef Bradley's essay is right,
it's worth more than a hundred thousand dollars ez it stands!"

"I suppose I must congratulate you, Miss Sharpe," said Mainwaring with
an attempt at interest, but his attention still preoccupied with the
open doorway.

"Oh, THEY know all about it!" said Minty, following the direction of his
abstracted eyes with a slight darkening of her own, "I jest kem out o'
the kitchen the other way, and Jim sent 'em a note; but I allowed I'd
tell YOU myself. Specially ez you are going away to-morrow."

"Who said I was going away to-morrow?" asked Mainwaring, uneasily.

"Loo Macy!"

"Ah--she did? But I may change my mind, you know!" he continued, with a
faint smile.

Minty shook her curls decisively. "I reckon SHE knows," she said dryly,
"she's got law and gospel for wot she says. But yer she comes. Ask her!
Look yer, Loo," she added, as the two women appeared at the doorway,
with a certain exaggeration of congratulatory manner that struck
Mainwaring as being as artificial and disturbed as his own, "didn't Sir
Francis yer say he was going to-morrow?"

"That's what I understood!" returned Louise, with cold astonishment,
letting her clear indifferent eyes fall upon Mainwaring. "I do not know
that he has changed his mind."