“Doctor,” old Sophy said, “there’s strange things goin’ on here by night and by day.  I don’ like that man,—­that Dick,—­I never liked him.  He giv’ me some o’ these things I’ got on; I take ’em ’cos I know it make him mad, if I no take ’em; I wear ’em, so that he need n’ feel as if I did n’ like him; but, Doctor, I hate him,—­jes’ as much as a member of the church has the Lord’s leave to hate anybody.”

Her eyes sparkled with the old savage light, as if her ill-will to Mr. Richard Veneer might perhaps go a little farther than the Christian limit she had assigned.  But remember that her grandfather was in the habit of inviting his friends to dine with him upon the last enemy he had bagged, and that her grandmother’s teeth were filed down to points, so that they were as sharp as a shark’s.

“What is that you have seen about Mr. Richard Veneer that gives you such a spite against him, Sophy?” asked the Doctor.

“What I’ seen ‘bout Dick Veneer?” she replied, fiercely.  “I’ll tell y’ what I’ seen.  Dick wan’s to marry our Elsie,—­that ’s what he wan’s; ‘n’ he don’ love her, Doctor,—­he hates her, Doctor, as bad as I hate him!  He wan’s to marry our Elsie, In’ live here in the big house, ‘n’ have nothin’ to do but jes’ lay still ‘n’ watch Massa Venner ‘n’ see how long ’t Ill take him to die, ‘n’ ‘f he don’ die fas’ ’puff, help him some way t’ die fasser!—­Come close up t’ me, Doctor!  I wan’ t’ tell you somethin’ I tol’ th’ minister t’ other day.  Th’ minister, he come down ‘n’ prayed ‘n’ talked good,—­he’s a good man, that Doctor Honeywood, ‘n’ I tol’ him all ‘bout our Elsie, but he did n’ tell nobody what to do to stop all what I’ been dreamin’ about happenin’.  Come close up to me, Doctor!”

The Doctor drew his chair close up to that of the old woman.

“Doctor, nobody mus’n’ never marry our Elsie ’s longs she lives!  Nobody mus’ n’ never live with Elsie but ol Sophy; ‘n’ ol Sophy won’t never die ’s long ’s Elsie ’s alive to be took care of.  But I’s feared, Doctor, I’s greatly feared Elsie wan’ to marry somebody.  The’ ’s a young gen’l’m’n up at that school where she go,—­so some of ’em tells me, ‘n’ she loves t’ see him ‘n’ talk wi’ him, ‘n’ she talks about him when she ’s asleep sometimes.  She mus ‘n’ never marry nobody, Doctor!  If she do, he die, certain!”

“If she has a fancy for the young man up at the school there,” the Doctor said, “I shouldn’t think there would be much danger from Dick.”

“Doctor, nobody know nothin’ ’bout Elsie but of Sophy.  She no like any other creator’ th’t ever drawed the bref o’ life.  If she ca’n’ marry one man ’cos she love him, she marry another man ’cos she hate him.”

“Marry a man because she hates him, Sophy?  No woman ever did such a thing as that, or ever will do it.”

“Who tol’ you Elsie was a woman, Doctor?” said old Sophy, with a flash of strange intelligence in her eyes.

The Doctor’s face showed that he was startled.  The old woman could not know much about Elsie that he did not know; but what strange superstition had got into her head, he was puzzled to guess.  He had better follow Sophy’s lead and find out what she meant.