"What I want with a mansion? The cabin whar I been a livin' all my life is plenty good enough for this old nigger. An' what's mo, blue grass a growin' on each side of a shady lane is better'n golden streets. I ain't a goin' ter be hard-headed bout Heaven, but I hope the Marster will let me settle in some cottage an' let it be in the country where I kin raise a few chickens an' mebbe keep a houndog."
"I am sure the Master will let you have whatever you want, dear Aunt Mary," Molly would say.
"But if'n he does that, I'll get too rotten spiled ter stay in Heaven. He better limit me some, or I'll feel too proudified even fer a angel."
"Oh, it is nice to be back home," sighed Molly, settling herself luxuriously in the sleepy-hollow chair that was supposed to be set aside for the master of the house. With the girlish habit she had never outgrown, she slipped off her pumps and stretched out her slender feet to the wood fire, that felt very comfortable in the crisp autumn weather.
"That's what you said when we arrived in Kentucky in the spring," teased her husband.
"Well, so it was nice. The migratory birds have two homes and they are always glad to get to whichever one is seasonable. I reckon I am with my two homes as Mother is with her seven children. I love them just the same. Thank goodness, I haven't seven of them, homes, I mean."
"Which home do you love best, Wellington or the Orchard Home?" asked Molly, smiling fondly at her husband, who was dandling little Mildred on his knees with awkward eagerness.
"Why, neither one of them is home to me unless you are there, and whichever one you grace with your presence is for the time being the one I like the better."
"And the baby, too, whichever one she is in makes it home!"
"Oh, certainly!" exclaimed Edwin Green with a whimsical expression on his face. "I see that when I make love now it is to be to two ladies and not to one."
"Don't you think Mildred has grown a lot? And see, her eyes have really turned brown, just as Mother said they would. Don't you think she looks well?"
"Yes, honey, I think she looks very well, but I don't think you do."
"Me! Nonsense! I am as well as can be, just a little tired from the trip."
"Yes, I know. Of course that was fatiguing, but I think you are thinner than you have any right to be. I am afraid you have been doing too much."