o’ linen ‘n’ beautiful clothes!  That’s what Dick wan’s.  An’ he hates Elsie ‘cos she don’ like him.  But if he marries Elsie, she’ll make him die some wrong way or other, ‘n’ they’ll take her ‘n’ hang her, or he’ll get mad with her ‘n’ choke her.—­Oh, I know his chokin’ tricks!—­he don’ leave his keys roun’ for nothin’!”

“What’s that you say, Sophy?  Tell me what you mean by all that.”

So poor Sophy had to explain certain facts not in all respects to her credit.  She had taken the opportunity of his absence to look about his chamber, and, having found a key in one of his drawers, had applied it to a trunk, and, finding that it opened the trunk, had made a kind of inspection for contraband articles, and, seeing the end of a leather thong, had followed it up until she saw that it finished with a noose, which, from certain appearances, she inferred to have seen service of at least doubtful nature.  An unauthorized search; but Old Sophy considered that a game of life and death was going on in the household, and that she was bound to look out for her darling.

The Doctor paused a moment to think over this odd piece of information.  Without sharing Sophy’s belief as to the kind of use this mischievous-looking piece of property had been put to, it was certainly very odd that Dick should have such a thing at the bottom of his trunk.  The Doctor remembered reading or hearing something about the lasso and the lariat and the bolas, and had an indistinct idea that they had been sometimes used as weapons of warfare or private revenge; but they were essentially a huntsman’s implements, after all, and it was not very strange that this young man had brought one of them with him.  Not strange, perhaps, but worth noting.

“Do you really think Dick means mischief to anybody, that he has such dangerous-looking things?” the Doctor said, presently.

“I tell you, Doctor.  Dick means to have Elsie.  If he ca’n’ get her, he never let nobody else have her.  Oh, Dick’s a dark man, Doctor!  I know him!  I ‘member him when he was little boy,—­he always cunnin’.  I think he mean mischief to somebody.  He come home late nights,—­come in softly,—­oh, I hear him!  I lay awake, ‘n’ got sharp ears,—­I hear the cats walkin’ over the roofs,—­’n’ I hear Dick Venner, when he comes up in his stockin’-feet as still as a cat.  I think he mean mischief to somebody.  I no like his looks these las’ days.—­Is that a very pooty gen’l’m’n up at the school-house, Doctor?”

“I told you he was good-looking.  What if he is?”

“I should like to see him, Doctor,—­I should like to see the pooty gen’l’m’n that my poor Elsie loves.  She mus’n’ never marry nobody,—­but, oh, Doctor, I should like to see him, ‘n’ jes’ think a little how it would ha’ been, if the Lord hadn’ been so hard on Elsie.”

She wept and wrung her hands.  The kind Doctor was touched, and left her a moment to her thoughts.