"It'll be all in the family,"had observed that astute lady,"and it's better for the looks of the things that we shouldn't he his tenants."It was only a few weeks later that she was startled by hearing her husband's voice calling her from the hillside as he rapidly approached the house.Mamie was in her room putting on a new pink cotton gown,in honor of an expected visit from young Don Caesar,and Mrs.Mulrady was tidying the house in view of the same event.
Something in the tone of her good man's voice,and the unusual circumstance of his return to the house before work was done,caused her,however,to drop her dusting cloth,and run to the kitchen door to meet him.She saw him running through the rows of cabbages,his face shining with perspiration and excitement,a light in his eyes which she had not seen for years.She recalled,without sentiment,that he looked like that when she had called him--a poor farm hand of her father's--out of the brush heap at the back of their former home,in Illinois,to learn the consent of her parents.The recollection was the more embarrassing as he threw his arms around her,and pressed a resounding kiss upon her sallow cheek.
"Sakes alive!Mulrady!"she said,exorcising the ghost of a blush that had also been recalled from the past with her housewife's apron,"what are you doin',and company expected every minit?""Malviny,I've struck it;and struck it rich!"She disengaged herself from his arms,without excitement,and looked at him with bright but shrewdly observant eyes.
"I've struck it in the well--the regular vein that the boys have been looking fer.There's a fortin'fer you and Mamie:thousands and tens of thousands!""Wait a minit."She left him quickly,and went to the foot of the stairs.He could hear her wonderingly and distinctly."Ye can take off that new frock,Mamie,"she called out.