Vesta stopped a moment and kissed her mother: "That is just the thing, dear mother," she said. "Let me straighten out the difficulties here; go, and come back when all is done, and you can be yourself again."

"I shall do it, Vesta. Brother Allan gets to Cambridge to-morrow afternoon; I will go as far as Salisbury this day, and either meet him on the road to-morrow or find him at Cambridge. Oh, what a house is Teackle Hall - full of male and female foresters, abolitionists, runaways, and radicals! All made crazy by the bog ores and the fool's hat!"

Descending to the yard, Vesta found Turk lying in his blood, his mastiff jaws and shaggy sides clotted red, and, as it seemed, the howl in which he died still lingering in the air. The Virginia spirit rose in Vesta's eyes:

"Whoever killed this dog only wanted the courage to kill men!" she exclaimed. "James Phoebus, look here!"

The pungy captain had been abroad for hours, and the masts of his vessel were just visible across the marshy neck in the rear of Teackle Hall. He touched his hat and came in.

"Early mornin', Miss Vesty! Hallo! Turk dead? By smoke, yer's pangymonum!"

"He's stabbed, Jimmy!" Samson Hat remarked, coming out of the kitchen; "see whar de dagger struck him right over de heart! Dat made him howl and fall dead. His froat was not cut dat sudden; it's gashed as if wid somethin' blunt."

"Right you are, nigger! The throat-cuttin' was a make believe; the stab will tell the tale. But who's this yer, lurkin' aroun' the kitchen do'; if it ain't Jack Wonnell, I hope I may die! Sic!"

With this, active as the dog had been but yesterday, Jimmy rushed on Jack Wonnell, chased him to the fence, and brought him back by the neck. Wonnell wore a bell-crown, and his hand was full of fall blossoms. As Wonnell observed the dead dog, pretty little Roxy came out of the kitchen, and stood blushing, yet frightened, to see him.

"What yo' doin' with them rosy-posies?" Jimmy demanded. "Who're they fur? What air you sneakin' aroun' Teackle Hall fur so bright of a mornin', lazy as I know you is, Jack Wonnell?"

"They are flowers he brings every morning for me," Roxy spoke up, coming forward with a pretty simper.

"For you?" exclaimed Vesta. "You are not receiving the attentions of white men, Roxy?"

"He offered, himself, to get flowers for me, so I might give you as pretty ones as Virgie, missy. I let him bring them. He's a poor, kind man."

"I jess got 'em, Jimmy," interjected Jack Wonnell, with his peculiar wink and leer, "caze Roxy's the belle of Prencess Anne, and I'm the bell-crown. She's my little queen, and I ain't ashamed of her."

"Courtin' niggers, air you!" Jimmy exclaimed, collaring Jack again. "Now whar did you go all day Sunday with Levin Dennis and the nigger buyer? What hokey-pokey wair you up to?"

"Mr. Wonnell," Roxy had the presence of mind to say, "take care you tell the truth, for my sake! Aunt Hominy is gone, with all the kitchen children, and Mr. Phoebus suspects you!"