“Pray, ma’am, where are you goin’ now?”

“It doesn’t signify,” she replied; “but at all events you needn’t ax me, for I won’t tell you.”

“What kind of answer is that to give me?  Do you forget that I’m your father?”

“I wish I could; for indeed I am sorry you are.”

“Oh, you know,” observed Nelly, “she was always a dutiful girl—­always a quiet good crathur.  Why, you onbiddable sthrap, what kind o’ an answer is that to give to your father?”

Ever since their stroll that morning, Sarah’s eyes had been turned from time to time upon her step-mother with flash after flash of burning indignation, and now that she addressed her, she said—­

“Woman, you don’t know how I scorn you!  Oh, you mane an’ wicked wretch, had you no pride during all your life!  It’s but a short time you an’ I will be undher the same roof together—­an’ so far as I am consarned, I’ll not stoop ever to bandy abuse or ill tongue with you again.  I know only one other person that is worse an’ meaner still than you are—­an’ there, I am sorry to say, he stands in the shape of my father.”

She walked out of the cabin with a flushed check, and a step that was full of disdain, and a kind of natural pride that might almost be termed dignity.  Both felt rebuked; and Nelly, whose face got blanched and pale at Sarah’s words, now turned upon the Prophet with a scowl.”

“Would it be possible,” said she, “that you’d dare to let out anything to that madcap?”

“Now,” said he, “that the coast is clear, I desire you to answer me a question that I’ll put to you—­an’ mark my words—­by all that s above us, an’ undher us, an’ about us, if you don’t spake thruth, I’ll be apt to make short work of it.”

“What is it?” she inquired, looking at him with cool and collected resentment, and an eye that was perfectly fearless.

“There was a Tobaccy-Box about this house, or in this house.  Do you know anything about it?”

“A tobaccy-box—­is it?”

“Ay, a tobaccy-box.”

“Well, an’ what about it?  What do you want wid it?  An ould, rusty Tobaccy-box; musha, is that what’s throublin’ you this mornin’?”

“Come,” said he darkening, “I’ll have no humbuggin’—­answer me at wanst.  Do you know anything about it?”

“Is it about your ould, rusty Tobaccy-box?  Arrah, what ’ud I know about it?  What the sorra would a man like you do wid a Tobaccy-box, that doesn’t ever smoke?  Is it mad or ravin’ you are?  Somehow I think the stroll you had wid the vagabone gipsy of a daughter of yours, hasn’t put you into the best of timper, or her aither.  I hope you didn’t act the villain on me:  for she looks at me as if she could ait me widout salt.  But, indeed, she’s takin’ on her own hands finely of late; she’s gettin’ too proud to answer me now when I ax her a question.”

“Well, why don’t you ax her as you ought?”

“She was out all yesterday evenin’, and when I said ’You idle sthrap, where wor you?’ she wouldn’t even think it worth her while to give me an answer, the vagabone.”