find 'emselves mighty onlucky as long as I's round! One ting or 'nother happens to 'em, so dat dey don't want to come no more. Drefful por times dey has!" And

Tiff shook with a secret chuckle.

"But, now, yer see, dere 's never any knowing! Dere may be some Peyton property coming to dese yer chil'en. I's known sich tings happen, 'fore now. Lawyers calling after de heirs; and den here dey be a'ready fetched up. I's minding dat I'd better speak to Miss Nina's man 'bout dese yer chil'en; 'cause he's a nice, perty man, and natʼrally he'd take an interest; and dat ar handsome sister of his, dat was so thick wid Miss Nina, maybe she'd be doing something for her. Any way, dese yer chil'en shall neber come to want 'long as I's above ground!"

Alas for the transitory nature of human expectations! Even our poor little Arcadia in the wilderness, where we have had so many hours of quaint delight, was destined to feel the mutability of all earthly joys and prospects. Even while Tiff spoke and sung, in the exuberance of joy and security of his soul, a disastrous phantom was looming up from a distance the phantom of Cripps' old wagon. Cripps was not dead, as was to have been hoped, but returning for a more permanent residence, bringing with him a bride of his own heart's choosing.

Tiff's dismay his utter, speechless astonishment - may be imagined, when the ill-favored machine rumbled up to the door, and Cripps produced from it what seemed to be, at first glance, a bundle of tawdry, dirty finery; but at last it turned out to be a woman, so far gone in intoxication as scarcely to be sensible of what she was doing. Evidently, she was one of the lowest of that class of poor whites whose wretched condition is not among the least of the evils of slavery. Whatever she might have been naturally, - what ever of beauty or of good there might have been in the womanly nature within her, lay wholly withered and eclipsed under the foi ce of an education churchless, schoolless, with all the vices of civilization without its refinements,

and all the vices of barbarism without the occasional nobility by which they are sometimes redeemed. A low and vicious connection with this woman had at last terminated in marriage such marriages as one shudders to think of, where gross animal natures come together, without even a glimmering idea of the higher purposes of that holy relation.

'Tiff, this yer is your new mistress," said Cripps, with an idiotic laugh. "Plaguy nice girl, too! I thought I'd bring the children a mother to take care of them. along, girl!"

Come

Looking closer, we recognize in the woman our old acquaintance, Polly Skinflint.

He pulled her forward; and she, coming in, seated herself on Fanny's bed. Tiff looked as if he could have struck her dead. An avalanche had fallen upon him. He stood in the door with the slack hand of utter despair; while she, swinging her heels, began leisurely spitting about her, in every direction, the juice of a quid of tobacco, which she cherished in one cheek.

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Durned if this yer an't pretty well!" she said. "Only I want the nigger to heave out that ar trash!" pointing to Fanny's flowers. "I don't want children sticking no herbs Hey, you nigger, heave out that trash!" As Tiff stood still, not obeying this call, the woman appeared angry; and, coming up to him, struck him on the side of the head.

round my house!

"O, come, come, Poll!" said Cripps, "you be still! He an't used to no such ways."

"Still!" said the amiable lady, turning round to him. "You go 'long! Didn't you tell me, if I married you, I should have a nigger to order round, just as I pleased?"

Well, well," said Cripps, who was not by any means a cruelly-disposed man, "I did n't think you'd want to go walloping him, the first thing."

"I will, if he don't shin round," said the virago, "and you, too!"

And this vigorous profession was further carried out by a 14*

II.

vigorous shove, which reäcted in Cripps in the form of a cuff, and in a few moments the disgraceful scuffle was at its full height. And Tiff turned in disgust and horror from the house.

"O, good Lord!" he said to himself; "we does n't know what's 'fore us! And I's feeling so bad when de Lord took my por little man, and now I's ready to go down on my knees to thank de Lord dat he's took him away from de evil to come! To think of my por sweet lamb, Miss Fanny, as I's been bringing up so carful! Lord, dis yer's a heap worse dan de cholera!"

It was with great affliction and dismay that he saw the children coming forward in high spirits, bearing between them a basket of wild-grapes, which they had been gathering. He ran out to meet them.

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Laws, yer por lambs," he said, "yer does n't know what's a coming on you! Yer pa's gone and married a drefful low white woman, sich as an't fit for no Christian children to speak to. And now dey's quar'ling and fighting in dere, like two heathens! And Miss Nina's dead, and dere an't no place for you to go !"

And the old man sat down and actually wept aloud, while the children, frightened, got into his arms, and nestled close to him for protection, crying too.

"What shall we do? what shall we do?" said Fanny. And Teddy, who always repeated, reverentially, all his sister's words, said, after her, in a deplorable whimper, "What shall we do?"

"I's a good mind to go off wid you in de wilderness, like de chil'en of Israel," said Tiff, "though dere an't no manna falling nowadays."

Tiff, does marrying father make her our ma?" said Fanny.

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No 'deed, Miss Fanny, it does n't! Yer ma was one o' de fustest old Virginny families. It was jist throwing herself 'way, marrying him! I neber said dat ar 'fore, 'cause it wan't 'spectful. But I don't care now!"

At this moment Cripps' voice was heard shouting:

Hallo, you Tiff! Where is the durned nigger? I say, come back! Poll and I 's made it up, now! Bring 'long them children, and let them get acquainted with their mammy," he said, laying hold of Fanny's hand, and drawing her, frightened and crying, towards the house.

"Don't you be afraid, child," said Cripps; "I've brought you a new ma."

“We didn't want any new ma!" said Teddy, in a dolorous voice.

"O, yes, you do," said Cripps, coaxing him. "Come along, my little man! There's your mammy," he said, pushing him into the fat embrace of Polly.

Fanny, go kiss your ma.

Fanny hung back and cried, and Teddy followed her example.

"Confound the durn young 'uns!" said the new-married lady. "I told you, Cripps, I did n't want no brats of t' other woman's! Be plague enough when I get some of my own!"

1

CHAPTER XVII.

THE FLIGHT INTO EGYPT.

THE once neat and happy cottage, of which Old Tiff was the guardian genius, soon experienced sad reverses. Polly Skinflint's violent and domineering temper made her absence from her father's establishment rather a matter of congratulation to Abijah. Her mother, one of those listless and inefficient women, whose lives flow in a calm, muddy current of stupidity and laziness, talked very little about it; but, on the whole, was perhaps better contented to be out of the range of Polly's sharp voice and long arms. It was something of a consideration, in Abijah's shrewd view of things, that Cripps owned a nigger- the first point to which the aspiration of the poor white of the South generally tends. Polly, whose love of power was a predominant element in her nature, resolutely declared, in advance, she 'd make him shin round, or she'd know the reason why. to the children, she regarded them as the encumbrances of the estate, to be got over with in the best way possible; for, as she graphically remarked, "Every durned young 'un had to look out when she was 'bout!"

As

The bride had been endowed with a marriage-portion, by her father, of half a barrel of whiskey; and it was announced that Cripps was tired of trading round the country, and meant to set up trading at home. In short, the little cabin became a low grog-shop, a resort of the most miserable and vicious portion of the community. The violent temper of Polly soon drove Cripps upon his travels again, and his children were left unprotected to the fury of