"Say! did you see anything of the professor while I was gone?" she
inquired.
"Lors, honey, I wish I hadn't! I knows how de thought of it will give me
'liriums nex' time I has a fever."
"Why? What did he do? When was it?"
"Why, chile, jes afore sundown, as I was a carryin' an armful of wood
up-stairs, for Miss Mary's room, I meets de 'fessor a comin' down. I
like to 'a' screamed! I like to 'a' let de wood drap! I like to 'a'
drapped right down myself! It made my heart beat in de back o' my
head--he look so awful, horrid gashly! Arter speakin' in a voice hollow
as an empty coffin, an' skeerin' me out'n my seventeen sensibles axin
arter you, he jes tuk hisself off summers, an' I ain't seen him sence."
"What did he ask you? What did you tell him?"
"He jes ax where you was. I telled him how you were gone home 'long o'
Miss Marian; he ax when you were comin' back; I telled him I believed
not till to-morrow mornin'; then his face turned all sorts of awful dark
colors, an' seemed like it crushed right in, an' he nodded and said
'Ah!' but it sounded jes like a hollow groan; and he tuk hisself off,
and I ain't seen him sence."
The elf danced about the room, unable to restrain her glee. And the
longer Dr.
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