you just keep it up for foolin' and flirtin'! SHE ain't goin' to weaken
on the man that shot her brother, just because he's got a gold mine
and--a mustache!"

"She takes his MONEY all the same," said Miss Sally.

"SHE don't,--her mother does. SHE says if she was a man she'd have blood
for blood!"

"My!" said Miss Sally, in affected consternation. "It's a wonder she
don't apply to you to act for her."

"If it was MY brother he killed, I'd challenge him quick enough," said
Chet, flushing through his thin pink skin and light hair.

"Marry her, then, and that'll make you one of the family. I reckon Miss
Hilda can bear it," rejoined the young lady pertly.

"Look here, Miss Sally," said the young fellow with a boyish despair
that was not without a certain pathos in its implied inferiority, "I
ain't gifted like you--I ain't on yo' level no how; I can't pass yo' on
the road, and so I reckon I must take yo' dust as yo' make it. But there
is one thing, Miss Sally, I want to tell you. You know what's going on
in this country, you've heard your father say what the opinion of the
best men is, and what's likely to happen if the Yanks force that nigger
worshiper, Lincoln, on the South. You know that we're drawing the line
closer every day, and spottin' the men that ain't sound. Take care, Miss
Sally, you ain't sellin' us cheap to some Northern Abolitionist
who'd like to set Marm Judy's little niggers to something worse
than eavesdropping down there, and mebbe teach 'em to kindle a fire