But when the time did come, she met it bravely, shaking his hand and speaking to him as if nothing had ever happened, and while he was wondering how he ever could have fancied her, she, too, was mentally styling herself “a fool,” for having liked “such a pussy, overgrown thing!” Dearly did Miss Nancy love excitement, and during the days that Mrs. Nichols was packing up, she was busy helping her to stow away the “crockery,” which the old lady declared should go, particularly the “blue set, which she’d had ever since the day but one before John was born, and which she intended as a part of ’Leny’s settin’ out.  Then, too, John’s wife could use ’em when she had a good deal of company; ‘twould save buyin’ new, and every little helped!”

“I wonder, now, if ’Tilda takes snuff,” said Mrs. Nichols, one day, seating herself upon an empty drygoods box which stood in the middle of the floor, and helping herself to an enormous pinch of her favorite Maccaboy; “I wonder if she takes snuff, ’cause if she does, we shall take a sight of comfort together.”

“I don’t much b’lieve she does,” answered Miss Nancy, whose face was very red with trying to cram a pair of cracked bellows into the already crowded top of John’s leathern trunk, “I don’t b’lieve she does, for somehow it seems to me she’s a mighty nipped-up thing, not an atom like you nor me.”

“Like enough,” returned Mrs. Nichols, finishing her snuff, and wiping her fingers upon the corner of her checked apron; “but, Nancy, can you tell me how in the world I’m ever going to carry this mop?  It’s bran new, never been used above a dozen times, and I can’t afford to give it away.”

At this point, John, who was sitting in the adjoining room, came forward.  Hitherto he had not interfered in the least in his mother’s arrangements, but had looked silently on while she packed away article after article which she would never need, and which undoubtedly would be consigned to the flames the moment her back was turned.  The mop business, however, was too much for him, and before Miss Nancy had time to reply, he said, “For heaven’s sake, mother, how many traps do you propose taking, and what do you imagine we can do with a mop?  Why, I dare say not one of my servants would know how to use it, and it’s a wonder if some of the little chaps didn’t take it for a horse before night.”

“A nigger ride my mop! my new mop!” exclaimed Mrs. Nichols, rolling up her eyes in astonishment, while Miss Nancy, turning to John, said, “In the name of the people, how do you live without mops?  I should s’pose you’d rot alive!”

“I am not much versed in the mysteries of housekeeping,” returned John, with a smile; “but it’s my impression that what little cleaning our floors get is done with a cloth.”

“Wall, if I won’t give it up now,” said Miss Nancy.  “As good an abolutionist as you used to be, make the poor colored folks wash the floor with a rag, on their hands and knees!  It can’t be that you indulge a hope, if you’ll do such things!”