"Um-HUM. I always did say he was his sister's own brother--for all
they don't look a bit alike. What's born into a man never comes
out!"
"Mr. Dorrance is my husband, Mammy! I shall not let you speak
disrespectfully of him. He does what he believes to be right and
just," returned Mabel, sternly.
"I ain't a-goin' to arger that with you, my sugar-plum! You're
right to stand up for him. I beg your pardon ef I've seemed sassy or
hurt your feelin's. And I dar' say, there mayn't be nothin' wuss
'bout him nor his outside. And that don't matter so much, ef
people's insides is clean and straight in the sight of the Lord. But
HER outside is all that's decent about her, ef you'll listen to
me--"
"You are forgetting yourself again!" said Mabel, unable to suppress
a smile. "Mrs. Aylett is your mistress--"
The woman's queer behavior arrested the remonstrance. Stepping on
tiptoe to the door she locked it, and approached her young mistress
with an ostentatious attempt at treading lightly, shaking her head
and pursing up her mouth in token of secrecy, while she fumbled in
her bosom for something that seemed hard to get at. Drawing it forth
at last she laid it in Mabel's lap--a small leather wallet, glossy
with use, tattered at the corners, and tied up with a bit of dirty
twine.
"What is this, and what am I to do with it?"
Mabel shrank from touching it, so foul and generally disreputable
was its appearance.
"Keep both your ears open, dearie, and I'll tell you all I know!"
And with infinite prolixity and numerous digressions she recounted
how, in removing the sodden clothing of the unknown man who had been
picked up on the lawn on that memorable stormy Chistmas night, more
than a year before, this had slipped from an inner breast-pocket of
the coat, "right into her hand." Not caring to disturb the doctor's
examination of his patient, or to tempt the cupidity of her
fellow-servants by starting the notion that there might be other
valuables hidden in the articles they handled so carelessly, she had
pocketed it, unobserved by them, guessing that it would be of
service at the inquest. Her purpose of producing it then was,
according to her showing, reversed by Mrs. Aylett's stolen visit to
the chamber and minute inspection of garments she would not have
touched unless urged to the disagreeable task by some mighty
consideration of duty, self-interest, or fear.
"'Then,' thinks I"--Phillis stated the various steps of her
reasoning--"'you wouldn't take the trouble to pull over them nasty,
muddy close, 'thout you expected to get some good out on 'em, or was
afeard of somethin' or 'nother fallin' into somebody else's hands.'
Whichsomever this mought be,'twasn't my business to be gittin' up a
row and a to-do before the crowner and all them gentlemen. 'Least
said soonest mended,' says I to myself, and keeps mum about the
whole thing--what I'd got, and what I'd seen. But when I come to
think it all over arterward, I was skeered for true at what I'd
done, and for fear Mars' Winston wouldn't like it. What reason could
I give him for hidin' of the pocketbook, ef I give it up to him? Ef
I tole all the truth, SHE'D be mad as a March hare, and like as not
face me down that all I had said was a dream or a lie, or that I was
drunk that night and couldn't see straight. I'd hearn her tell too
many fibs with a smooth tongue and a sweet smile not to be sure of
that! So, all I should git for my care of the repertation of my
fam'ly would be her ill-will, and to be 'cused by other people of
stealin', and for the rest of my days she'd do all she could to
spite me. For I'm sure as I stand here, Miss Mabel, that she knew,
or thought she knew, somethin' 'bout that poor, despisable wretch
that died up in the garret. What else brought him a-spyin' 'round
here, and what was there to make her faint when she ketched sight of
him a-lookin' in at her through the winder? and what COULD a sent
her upstars when everybody else was asleep, fur to haul his close
about, and poke them fine white fingers of hern into his pockets,
and pull his WHISKERY face over to the light so's to see it better?
Depend 'pon it, there's a bad story at the bottom of this somewhere.
I've hearn of many a sich that came of gentlemens' marrying
forringers what nobody knowed anything about. Anyhow, I want you to
take keer of this 'ere pocketbook. Ef I was to die all of a suddent,
and 'twas found 'mong my things, some mischief mought be hatched out
on it. It's safer in your hands nor it is in mine. Now, I'll jest
light your lamp, and you can 'xamine it, and pitch it into the fire,
ef you like, when you're through."