She 'uz a frien' er yo' momma's, honey." Miss Betty had begun by making a pretence to eat, only to please the old man, but the vain woman's cookery had been not unduly extolled, and Nelson laughed with pleasure to see the fluffy biscuits and the chicken wing not nibbled at but actually eaten.

This was a healthy young lady, he thought, one who would do the household credit and justify the extravagant pride which kitchen and stable already had in her.

He was an old house-servant, therefore he had seen many young ladies go through unhappy hours, and he admired Miss Betty the more because she was the first who had indulged in strong weeping and did not snuffle at intervals afterward.

He understood perfectly everything that had passed between father and daughter that morning.
When her breakfast was finished, she turned slowly to the window, and, while her eyes did not refill, a slight twitching of the upper lids made him believe that she was going over the whole scene again in her mind; whereupon he began to move briskly about the room with a busy air, picking up her napkin, dusting a chair with his hand, exchanging the position of the andirons in the fireplace; and, apparently discovering that the por-trait of Georges Meilhac was out of line, he set it awry, then straight again, the while he hummed an old "spiritual" of which only the words "Chain de Lion Down" were allowed to be quite audible.
They were repeated often, and at each repetition of them he seemed profoundly, though decorously, amused, in a way which might have led to a conjecture that the refrain bore some distant reference to his master's eccentricity of temper.

At first be chuckled softly, but at the final iteration of "Chain de Lion Down" burst into outright laughter.
"Honey, my Law!" he exclaimed, "But yo' pa de 'ceivin'dest man! He mighty proud er you!" "Proud of me!" She turned to him in astonishment.
Nelson's laughter increased.