FORESHADOWINGS So absorbed were Hugh and his mother in that letter as not to hear the howl of fear echoing through the hall, as Mug fled in terror from the dreaded new owner to whom Master Hugh was to sell her.

Neither did they hear the catlike tread with which Lulu glided past the door, taking the same direction Mug had gone, namely, to Alice Johnson's room.
Lulu had been sitting by the open window at the end of the hall, and had heard every word of this letter, while Mug had reached the threshold in time to hear all that was said about selling her.

Instinctively both turned for protection to Alice, but Mug was the first to reach her.
Throwing herself upon her knees, she sobbed frantically.
"You buys me, Miss Alice.

You give Mar's Hugh six hundred dollars for me, so't he can get Miss 'Lina's weddin' finery.

I'll be good, I will.
I'll learn do Lord's Prar, an' de Possums Creed, ebery word on't; will you, Miss Alice, say ?" Alice tried to wrest her muslin dress from the child's grasp, asking what she meant.
"I know, I'll tell," and Lulu, scarcely less excited, but far more capable of restraining herself, advanced into the room, and ere the bewildered Alice could well understand what it all meant, or make more than a feeble attempt to stop her, she had repeated rapidly the entire contents of 'Lina's letter.
Too much amazed at first to speak, Alice sat motionless, then she said to Lulu.
"I am sorry that you told me this.