"You ain't mad ?" said she, with an interrogative shake of the black braids.

"No." "Nor bothered ?" "No." "Nor hungry ?" (Hunger was to Mliss a sickness that might attack a person at any moment.) "No." "Nor thinking of her ?" "Of whom, Lissy ?" "That white girl." (This was the latest epithet invented by Mliss, who was a very dark brunette, to express Clytemnestra.) "No." "Upon your word ?" (A substitute for "Hope you'll die!" proposed by the master.) "Yes." "And sacred honor ?" "Yes." Then Mliss gave him a fierce little kiss, and, hopping down, fluttered off.

For two or three days after that she condescended to appear more like other children, and be, as she expressed it, "good." Two years had passed since the master's advent at Smith's Pocket, and as his salary was not large, and the prospects of Smith's Pocket eventually becoming the capital of the State not entirely definite, he contemplated a change.

He had informed the school trustees privately of his intentions, but educated young men of unblemished moral character being scarce at that time, he consented to continue his school term through the winter to early spring.

None else knew of his intention except his one friend, a Dr.Duchesne, a young Creole physician known to the people of Wingdam as "Duchesny." He never mentioned it to Mrs.Morpher, Clytie, or any of his scholars.