As Nicholas entered she looked up brightly, exclaiming:  “Oh, it’s you!” in disappointed accents.

Nicholas looked about the kitchen inquiringly.

“Where’s ma?” he asked, and at the instant Marthy Burr appeared in the doorway, a pat of butter in her hand.

“Air you home, Nick?” was her greeting, as she placed the butter upon the table.  Then she went across to Nannie and examined the hem on the cambric ruffle.

“It seems to me you might have done them stitches a little finer,” she observed critically.  “Old Mrs. Turner’s got powerful sharp eyes for stitches, an’ she’s goin’ to look mighty hard at yours.  If thar’s one stitch shorter’n another, it’s goin’ to stand out plainer than all the rest.  It’s the nater of a woman to be far-sighted at seeing the flaws in her son’s wife, an’ old Mrs. Turner ain’t no better’n God made her, if she ain’t no worse.  ‘Tain’t my way to be wishin’ harm to folks, but I al’ays said the only thing to Amos Burr’s credit I ever heerd of is that he’s an orphan—­which he ain’t responsible for.”

“But the sewing’s all right,” returned Nannie in wounded pride.  “Nat ain’t marrying me for my sewing, anyway.”

Her mother shook her head.

“What a man marries for’s hard to tell,” she returned; “an’ what a woman marries for’s past find-in’ out.  I ain’t never seen an old maid yet that ain’t had a mighty good opinion of men—­an’ I ain’t never seen a married woman that ain’t had a feelin’ that a few improvements wouldn’t be out of place.  I don’t want to turn you agin Nat Turner—­he’s a man an’ he’s got a mother, an’ that’s all I’ve got agin him.  No talkin’s goin’ to turn anybody that’s got their mind set on marryin’, any more than it’s goin’ to turn anybody that’s got their mind set on drink.  So I ain’t goin’ to open my mouth.”

Here Amos Burr appeared, and as he seated himself beside Nannie she drew her ruffles away.  “You’re so dusty, pa,” she exclaimed half pettishly.

He fixed his heavy, admiring eyes upon her, receiving the reproof as meekly as he received all feminine utterances.  He might bully a man, but he would always be bullied by a woman.

“I reckon you’re pretty near ready,” he observed cheerfully, rubbing his great hairy hands.  “You’ve got ’most a trunk full of finery.  I reckon Turner’ll know I ain’t in the poorhouse yet—­or near it.”

It was a speech of unusual length, and, after making it, he slowly settled into silence.

“Nat wouldn’t mind if I was in the poorhouse, so long as he could get me out,” said his daughter, taking up the cudgels in defence of her lover’s disinterestedness.

Amos Burr chuckled.

“Don’t you set no store by that,” he rejoined.

“An’ don’t you set about judgin’ other folks by yourself, Amos Burr,” retorted his wife sharply. “’Tain’t likely you’d ever pull anybody out o’ the poorhouse ‘thout slippin’ in yourself, seein’ as I’ve slaved goin’ on twenty years to keep you from land-in’ thar at last.  The less you say about some things the better.  Now, you’d jest as well set down an’ eat your supper.”