Mike grinned widely.

“Oh, yes indeed, ma’am,” said he; “no trouble ’bout that, ’specially when I think what pie crust is made of, an’ that you’s a cook.”

“Oh, it isn’t that kind of flower,” said La Fleur, laughing; “but it doesn’t matter a bit,—­it sounds the same.  And now, Michael, you must warm this and eat it for your dinner.  Have you a fire in your house?”

“I can make one in no time,” said Mike.  “Then you think I’d better not let the cook warm it for me?”

“You are quite right,” said La Fleur.  “I don’t believe she’s half as good a cook as you are, Michael, for I’ve heard that all colored people have a knack that way; and like as not she’d burn it to a crisp.”

Wrapping up the pie and handing it to the delighted negro, La Fleur proceeded to business, for she felt she had no time to lose.

“And how are you getting on, Michael?” said she.  “I suppose everybody is very busy preparing for the master’s wedding.”

“The what!” exclaimed Mike, his eyebrows elevating themselves to such a degree that his hat rose.

“Mr. Haverley’s marriage with Miss Dora Bannister.  Isn’t that to take place very soon, Michael?”

Mike put his pie on the post of the barn gate, took off his hat, and wiped his brow with his shirt-sleeve.

“Bless my evarlastin’ soul, Mrs. Flower! who on this earth told you that?”

“Is it then such a great secret?  Miss Panney told it to me not twenty minutes ago.”

Mike put on his hat; he took his pie from the post, and held it, first in one hand and then in the other.  He seemed unable to express what he thought.

“Look a here, Mrs. Flower,” he said presently, “she told you that, did she?”

“She really did,” was the answer.

“Well, then,” said Mike, “the long an’ the short of it is, she lies.  ’Tain’t the fust time that old Miss Panney has done that sort of thing.  She comes to me one day, more than six year ago, an’ says, ‘Mike,’ says she, ‘why don’t you marry Phoebe Moxley?’ ’’Cause I don’t want to marry her, nor nobody else,’ says I.  ‘But you ought to,’ said she, ’for she’s a good woman an’ a nice washer an’ ironer, an’ you’d do well together.’  ‘Don’t want no washin’ nor ironin’, nor no Phoebe, neither,’ says I. But she didn’t mind nothin’ what I said, an’ goes an’ tells everybody that me an’ Phoebe was goin’ to be married; an’ then it was we did git married, jest to stop people talkin’ so much about it, an’ now look at us.  Me never so much as gittin’ a bite of corn-bread, an’ she a boardin’ the minister!  Jes’ you take my word for it, Mrs. Flower, old Miss Panney wants Miss Dora to marry him, an’ she’s goin’ about tellin’ people, thinkin’ that after a while they’ll do it jes’ ’cause everybody ’spects them to.”

“But don’t you think they intend to marry, Mike?” forgetting to address him by his full name.

Mike was about to strike the pie in his right hand with his left, in order to give emphasis to his words, but he refrained in time.