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“Now, George,” she said, “you shall not trifle with Eliza in that manner.” Then turning to the old servant, she said: “Eliza, it means nothing. Do not trouble yourself about it. You know Uncle Simon is old; he has been exhorting for you now for many years, and he needs a little rest these Sundays. It is getting toward midsummer, and it is warm and wearing work to preach as Uncle Simon does.”

Lize stood still, with an incredulous and unsatisfied look on her face. After a while she said, dubiously shaking her head:

“Huh uh! Miss M’ree, dat may ‘splain t’ings to you, but hit ain’ mek ’em light to me yit.”

“Now, Mrs. Marston”–began her husband, chuckling.

“Hush, I tell you, George. It’s really just as I tell you, Eliza, the old man is tired and needs rest!”

Again the old woman shook her head, “Huh uh,” she said, “ef you’d’ a’ seen him gwine lickety split outen de meetin’-house you wouldn’ a thought he was so tiahed.”

Marston laughed loud and long at this. “Well, Mrs. Marston,” he bantered, “even Lize is showing a keener perception of the fitness of things than you.”

“There are some things I can afford to be excelled in by my husband and my servants. For my part, I have no suspicion of Uncle Simon, and no concern about him either one way or the other.”

“‘Scuse me, Miss M’ree,” said Lize, “I didn’ mean no ha’m to you, but I ain’ a trustin’ ol’ Brothah Simon, I tell you.”

“I’m not blaming you, Eliza; you are sensible as far as you know.”

“Ahem,” said Mr. Marston.

Eliza went out mumbling to herself, and Mr. Marston confined his attentions to his dinner; he chuckled just once, but Mrs. Marston met his levity with something like a sniff.

On the first two Sundays that Uncle Simon was away from his congregation nothing was known about his whereabouts. On the third Sunday he was reported to have been seen making his way toward the west plantation. Now what did this old man want there? The west plantation, so called, was a part of the Marston domain, but the land there was worked by a number of slaves which Mrs. Marston had brought with her from Louisiana, where she had given up her father’s gorgeous home on the Bayou Lafourche, together with her proud name of Marie St. Pierre for George Marston’s love. There had been so many bickerings between the Marston servants and the contingent from Louisiana that the two sets had been separated, the old remaining on the east side and the new ones going to the west. So, to those who had been born on the soil the name of the west plantation became a reproach. It was a synonym for all that was worldly, wicked and unregenerate. The east plantation did not visit with the west. The east gave a dance, the west did not attend. The Marstons and St. Pierres in black did not intermarry. If a Marston died, a St. Pierre did not sit up with him. And so the division had kept up for years.

It was hardly to be believed then that Uncle Simon Marston, the very patriarch of the Marston flock, was visiting over the border. But on another Sunday he was seen to go straight to the west plantation.

At her first opportunity Lize accosted him:–

“Look a-hyeah, Brothah Simon, whut’s dis I been hyeahin’ ’bout you, huh?”

“Well, sis’ Lize, I reckon you’ll have to tell me dat yo’ se’f, ‘case I do’ know. Whut you been hyeahin’?”

“Brothah Simon, you’s a ol’ man, you’s ol’.”

“Well, sis’ Lize, dah was Methusalem.”

“I ain’ jokin’, Brothah Simon, I ain’ jokin’, I’s a talkin’ right straightfo’wa’d. Yo’ conduc’ don’ look right. Hit ain’ becomin’ to you as de shepherd of a flock.”

“But whut I been doin’, sistah, whut I been doin’?”

“You know.”

“I reckon I do, but I wan’ see whethah you does er not.”