She's ober two hunnerd years ole." "What!" exclaimed Master Junius, "two hundred ?" "Yes, sah," answered Letty.

"Doctor Peter's old Jim was more'n a hunnerd when he died, an' we all knows Aun' Patsy is twice as ole as ole Jim." "I'll wait here," said Master Junius, taking up a book.

"I suppose she will be back before long." In about half an hour Uncle Isham came into the kitchen, his appearance indicating that he had had a hurried walk, and told Letty that she had better give Master Junius his supper without waiting any longer for her mistress.

"She ain't at Aun' Patsy's," said the old man, "and she's jus' done gone somewhar else, and she'll come back when she's a mind to, an' dar ain't nuffin else to say 'bout it." Supper was eaten; a pipe was smoked on the porch; and Master Junius went to bed in a room which had been carefully prepared for him under the supervision of the mistress; but the purple sun-bonnet, and the umbrella of the same color did not return to the house that night.
Master Junius was a quiet man, and fond of walking; and the next day he devoted to long rambles, sometimes on the roads, sometimes over the fields, and sometimes through the woods; but in none of his walks, nor when he came back to dinner and supper, did he meet the elderly mistress of the house to which he had come.

That evening, as he sat on the top step of the porch with his pipe, he summoned to him Uncle Isham, and thus addressed the old man: "I think it is impossible, Isham, that your mistress started out to meet me, and that an accident happened to her.