And Candace ended with a guttural howl, and stood frowning and gloomy over the top of her long kitchen-shovel, like a black Bellona leaning on her spear of battle.

Digo recoiled a little, but stood too well in his own esteem to give up; so he shifted his attack.

“Well, for my part, I must say I never was ’clined to your Doctor’s ‘pinions.  Why, now, Dr. Stiles says, notin’ couldn’t be more absurd dan what he says ’bout disinterested benevolence. My Doctor says, dere a’n’t no such ting!”

“I should tink it’s likely!” said Candace, drawing herself up with superb disdain. “Our Doctor knows dere is,—­and why? ’cause he’s got it IN HERE,” said she, giving her ample chest a knock which resounded like the boom from a barrel.

“Candace,” said Cato, gently, “you’s gittin’ too hot.”

“Cato, you shut up!” said Candace, turning sharp round.  “What did I make you dat ar’ flip for, ‘cept you was so hoarse you oughtn’ for to say a word?  Pootty business, you go to agitatin’ yourself wid dese yer!  Ef you wear out your poor old throat talkin’, you may get de ’sumption; and den what’d become o’ me?”

Cato, thus lovingly pitched hors-de-combat, sipped the sweetened cup in quietness of soul, while Candace returned to the charge.

“Now, I tell ye what,” she said to Digo,—­“jest ’cause you wear your master’s old coats and hats, you tink you must go in for all dese yer old, mean, white ’pinions.  A’n’t ye ’shamed—­you, a black man—­to have no more pluck and make cause wid de Egyptians?  Now, ’ta’n’t what my Doctor gives me,—­he never giv’ me the snip of a finger-nail,—­but it’s what he does for mine; and when de poor critturs lands dar, tumbled out like bales on de wharves, ha’n’t dey seen his great cocked hat, like a lighthouse, and his big eyes lookin’ sort o’ pitiful at ’em, as ef he felt o’ one blood wid ’em?  Why, de very looks of de man is worth everyting; and who ever thought o’ doin’ anyting for deir souls, or cared ef dey had souls, till he begun it?”

“Well, at any rate,” said Digo, brightening up, “I don’t believe his doctrine about de doings of de unregenerate,—­it’s quite clear he’s wrong dar.”

“Who cares?” said Candace,—­“generate or unregenerate, it’s all one to me.  I believe a man dat acts as he does.  Him as stands up for de poor,—­him as pleads for de weak,—­he’s my man.  I’ll believe straight through anyting he’s a mind to put at me.”

At this juncture, Mary’s fair face appearing at the door put a stop to the discussion.

“Bress you, Miss Mary! comin’ here like a fresh June rose! it makes a body’s eyes dance in deir head!  Come right in!  I got Cato up from de lot, ‘cause he’s rader poorly dis mornin’; his cough makes me a sight o’ concern; he’s allers a-pullin’ off his jacket de wrong time, or doin’ sometin’ I tell him not to,—­and it just keeps him hack, hack, hackin’, all de time.”