“Now look here, Miss Miriam,” said he, lowering his voice a little, but not enough to make him seem disrespectfully confidential, “what you want is a first-class colored cook—­not Phoebe, she’s no good cook, an’ won’t live in the country, an’ is so mighty stuck up that she don’t like nuthin’ but wheat bread, an’ ain’t no ’count anyway.  But I got a sister, Miss Miriam.  She’s a number one, fust-class cook, knows all the northen an’ southen an’ easten an’ westen kind of cookin’, an’ she’s only got two chillun, what could keep in the house all day long an’ not trouble nobody, ‘side bringin’ kindlin’ an’ runnin’ errands; an’ the husband, he’s dead, an’ that’s a good sight better, Miss Miriam, than havin’ him hangin’ round, eatin’ his meals here, an’ bein’ no use, ’cause he had rheumatism all over him, ’cept on his appetite.”

This suggestion pleased Miriam; here was a chance for another old family servant.

“I think I should like to have your sister, Mike,” she said; “what is her name?  Is she working for anybody now?”

“Her name is Seraphina—­Seraphina Paddock.  Paddock was his name.  She’s keepin’ house now, an’ takin’ in washin’, down to Bridgeport.  I reckon she’s like to come here an’ live, mighty well.”

“I wish you’d tell her to come and see me,” said Miriam.  “I think it would be a very good thing for us to have a colored cook.”

“Mighty good thing.  There ain’t nothin’ better than a colored cook; but jus’ let me tell you, Miss Miriam, my sister’s mighty particular ’bout goin’ to places an’ takin’ her family, an’ furniture, an’ settin’ herself up to live when she don’t know whether things is fixed an’ settled there, or whether the fust thing she knows is she’s got to pull up stakes an’ git out agin.”

“I am sure everything is fixed and settled here,” said Miriam, in surprise.

“Well, now look a here, Miss Miriam,” said Mike, “’spose you was clean growed up, an’ you’re near that now, as anybody can see, an’ you was goin’ to git married to somebody, or ‘spose Mr. Haverley was goin’ to git married to somebody, why don’ you see you’d go way with your husband, an’ your brother he’d come here with his new wife, an’ everything would be turned over an’ sot upside down, an’ then Seraphina, she’d have to git up an’ git, for there’d sure to be a new kin’ of cook wanted or else none, an’ Seraphina, she’d fin’ her house down to Bridgeport rented to somebody who had gone way without payin’ the rent, an’ had been splittin’ kindlin’ on the front steps an’ hacking ’em all up, and white-washin’ the kitchen what she papered last winter to hide the grease spots what they made through living like pigs, an’ Seraphina, she can’t stand nothing like that.”

Miriam burst out laughing.

“Mike,” she cried, “nobody is going to get married here.”

Mike’s eyes glistened.

“That so, sure?” he said.  “You see, Miss Miriam, you an’ your brother is both so ‘tractive, that I sort o’ ‘sposed you might be thinkin’ of gittin’ married, an’ if that was so, I couldn’t go to Seraphina, an’ git her to come here when things wasn’t fixed an’ settled.”