“Er—­Miss Ma’y Ellen—­” she began again.

“Yes.  What is it, Lucy?”

“Does you know—?”

“Do I know what?”

“Does you know who’s jess erbout ther fines’ and likelies’ man whut lives in all these yer pahts erroun’ yer?”

Mary Ellen stopped tossing bits of bread to the chickens.  “No, Aunt Lucy,” she said.  “I hadn’t thought about that.”

“Yes, you has!” cried Aunt Lucy, rising and shaking a bodeful forefinger.  “Yes you has, an’ yes you does!  An’ you don’ ’preshuate him, thass whut.  Him a wushshippin’ you!”

Mary Ellen began tossing bread again.  “How do you know that?” she asked.

“How does I know?—­law me, jes listen to thet chile!  How does I know?  Ain’ he done tole me, an’ yo’ an’ Lizzie, an’ Majah Buford—­an’ you?  Ain’ he done tole you a dozen times?  Don’ everybody know hit?  Him ez fine er man you goin’ toe see right soon, I tell you.  Tall ez yo’ fatheh wuz, an’ strong ez er li’ne.  He kin git ole Mr. An’lope.  He kin ride ary beastis in this yer onery country.  An’ him a-wukkin’ for ther railroad, an’ a lawyeh, an’ all that.  He’s shoh’ boun’ toe be rich, one o’ these yer days.  An’ he’s a gemman, too, mo’oveh; he’s a gemman!  Reckon I knows quality!  Yas, sir, Cap’n Franklin, she shoh’ly am the bestes’ man fer a real lady to choosen—­bestes’ in all this yer lan’.  Uh-huh!”

“I never thought of him—­not in that way,” said Mary Ellen, not quite able to put an end to this conversation.

“Miss Ma’y Ellen,” said Aunt Lucy solemnly, “I’se wukked fer you an’ yo’ fam’ly all my life, an’ I hates to say ary woh’d what ain’t fitten.  But I gotto to tell you, you ain’ tellin’ the trufe to me, toe yo’ old black mammy, right now.  I tells you, an’ I knows it, tha’ hain’t nary gal on earth ever done look at no man, I don’t care who he wuz, ’thout thinkin’ ‘bout him, an’ ‘cidin’ in her min’, one way er otheh whetheh she like fer to mah’y that ther man er not!  If er ’ooman say she do different f’om thet, she shoh’ly fergettin’ o’ the trufe, thass all!  Ain’ thought o’ him!  Go ’long!” Aunt Lucy wiped her hand upon her apron violently in the vehemence of her incredulity.

Mary Ellen’s face sobered with a trace of the old melancholy.

“Aunt Lucy,” she said, “you mean kindly, I am sure, but you must not talk to me of these things.  Don’t you remember the old days back home?  Can you forget Master Henry, Aunt Lucy—­can you forget the days—­those days—?”

Aunt Lucy rose and went over to Mary Ellen and took her hand between her own great black ones.  “No, I doesn’t fergit nothin’, Miss Ma’y Ellen,” she said, wiping the girl’s eyes as though she were still a baby.  “I doesn’t fergit Mas’ Henry, Gord bless him!  I doesn’t fergit him any mo’n you does.  How kin I, when I done loved him much ez I did you?  Wuzn’t I goin’ to come ‘long an’ live wif you two, an’ take keer o’ you, same’s