“I should call Elsie a woman, and a very handsome one,” he said.  “You don’t mean that she has any mark about her, except—­you know—­under the necklace?”

The old woman resented the thought of any deformity about her darling.

“I did n’ say she had nothin’—­but jes’ that—­you know.  My beauty have anything ugly?  She’s the beautifullest-shaped lady that ever had a shinin’ silk gown drawed over her shoulders.  On’y she a’n’t like no other woman in none of her ways.  She don’t cry ‘n’ laugh like other women.  An’ she ha’n’ got the same kind o’ feelin’s as other women.—­Do you know that young gen’l’m’n up at the school, Doctor?”

“Yes, Sophy, I’ve met him sometimes.  He’s a very nice sort of young man, handsome, too, and I don’t much wonder Elsie takes to him.  Tell me, Sophy, what do you think would happen, if he should chance to fall in love with Elsie, and she with him, and he should marry her?”

“Put your ear close to my lips, Doctor, dear!” She whispered a little to the Doctor, then added aloud, “He die,—­that’s all.”

“But surely, Sophy, you a’n’t afraid to have Dick marry her, if she would have him for any reason, are you?  He can take care of himself, if anybody can.”

“Doctor!” Sophy answered, “nobody can take care of hisself that live wi’ Elsie!  Nobody never in all this worl’ mus’ live wi’ Elsie but of Sophy, I tell you.  You don’ think I care for Dick?  What do I care, if Dick Venner die?  He wan’s to marry our Elsie so ’s to live in the big house ‘n’ get all the money ‘n’ all the silver things ‘n’ all the chists full o’ linen ‘n’ beautiful clothes.  That’s what Dick wan’s.  An’ he hates Elsie ‘cos she don’ like him.  But if he marry 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.