"Now, it's jist nothin' but that pesky bacon you ate this mornin',
Caesar: you sha'n't never touch a bit again's long's you live; do you
hear?" and with hot water and flannels, she would proceed to comfort and
coddle him as if no anger had ever stirred her heart.

When she saw poor Sarah Little sink crying into a chair, and heard the
humble gratefulness of her words; and, moreover, felt herself, as it
were, distinctly taken into confidence by the implied reference to the
unhappy past,--old Nan melted.

"There, there, honey: don't ye take on so. We're jest powerful glad to
get you here, we be. I was a tellin' Miss Hetty yesterday she couldn't
live here alone, noways: we couldn't any of us stand it. Come along into
the dinin'-room, an' Caesar he'll give you a glass of his blackberry
wine. Caesar won't let anybody but hisself touch the blackberry wine, an'
hain't this twenty year."

"Here, Caesar! you, Caesar! where be yer? Come right in here, you
loafin' niggah." This was Nan's most affectionate nickname for her
husband; it was always accompanied with a glance of proud admiration,
which was the key to the seemingly opprobrious epithet, and revealed
that all it really meant was a complacent satisfaction in her breast
that her husband was in a position to loaf if he liked to,--a gentleman
of leisure and dignity, so to speak, subject to no orders but her own.

Caesar could hardly believe his ears when he heard himself called upon
to bring a glass of his blackberry wine to Mrs. Sarah Little. This was
not at all in keeping with the line of conduct which Nan had announced
beforehand that she should pursue in regard to that lady. Bewildered by
his perplexed meditations on this change of policy, he moved even more