Accustomed, as she was, to Aunt Peggy's fault finding, and her strange way of talking, she was particularly impressed with it to-night.

'Twas so strange, Phillis thought, that she should have talked about being stolen away from Guinea, and things that happened almost a hundred years ago.

Then her saying, so often that, "Death was about." Phillis was no more nervous than her iron tea-kettle, but now she could not feel right.

She sat down by the door, and tried to compose herself.

Every one on the plantation was quiet; it seemed to her the night got brighter and brighter, and the heavens more crowded with stars than she had ever seen them.