Patty's beauty was wasted.

Once or twice she caught fleeting glances passing between them, and these glances, so winged with happiness, spoke unutterable and ecstatic things.
A hush dropped suddenly on the table, and in this hush she heard the voice of Colonel Buffington telling a story in dialect.

It was an immemorial anecdote of Cousin Jimmy's--she had heard him tell it a dozen times--and while she listened, it made her feel comfortably at home.
"'Uncle Amos,' I said to him, 'we've been together thirty years, but we've got to part.

You're a drunkard and a thief and a worthless darky all round, and you've lived on my place ever since the war without doing a lick of work for your keep.

I've stood it as long as I can, but there's an end to human endurance.