his pussonal servant, I reckon. Leastways dat’s what Miss Dorothy say she tink.”
“Who is your Miss Dorothy?” the young man asked with badly simulated indifference, for this was a member of the Wyanoke family of whom Dr. Arthur Brent had never before heard.
“Miss Dorothy? Why, she’s jes’ Miss Dorothy, so.”
“But what’s her other name?”
“I dunno. I reckon she ain’t got no other name. Leastways I dunno.”
“Is Wyanoke a fine plantation?”
“Fine, Mahstah? It’s de very finest dey is.{18} It’s all out o-doors and I reckon dey’s a thousand cullud people on it.”
{18}
“Oh, hardly that,” answered the young man—“say eight or nine hundred—or perhaps one hundred would be nearer the mark.”
“No, Sir! De Brents is quality folks, Mahstah. Dey’s got more’n a thousan’ niggas, an’ two or three thousan’ horses, an’ as fer cows an’ hawgs you jes’ cawn’t count ’em! Dey eats dinner offen chaney plates every day an’ de forks at Wyanoke is all gold.”
“How many carriages do they keep, Dick?”
“Sebenteen, besides de barouche an’ de carryall.”
“Well, now you’d better be moving on. Your Miss Polly and your Miss Dorothy may be waiting for their letters.”
As the boy rode away, Dr. Arthur Brent resumed his brisk walk. He no longer concerned himself with the landscape, or the woods, or the wild flowers, or the beauty of the June morning, or anything else. He was thinking, and not to much purpose.
“Who the deuce,” he muttered, “can this Miss Dorothy be? Of course I remember dear old Aunt Polly. She has always lived at Wyanoke. But who is Dorothy? As my uncle wasn’t married of course he had no daughter.{19} And besides, if he had, she would be his heir, and I should never have inherited the property at all. I wonder if I have inherited a family, with the land? Psha! Dick invented Miss Dorothy, of course. Why didn’t I think of that? I remember my last stay of a year at Wyanoke, and everything about the place. There was no Dorothy there then, and pretty certainly there is none now. Dick invented her, just as he invented the gold forks, and the thousand negroes, and all those
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