scorn, but she did as she was told, and landed beside Mrs. Mahna's boat, and Mrs. Mahna took the girl's mooring lines and made them fast handily to the stakes which other shantyboaters had driven into the bank and left when they pulled out.
"If it's no offence, who all mout you be?" Mrs. Mahna asked in her politest river language.
"Delia," the girl answered.
"Delia?" Mrs. Mahna repeated, adding, "that's a lady's first name!"
"I'm a lady," Delia smiled, "and that's my first, last, and middle name."
"Sho!" Mrs. Mahna exclaimed, perplexed. Then the elder woman burst into a low chuckle, saying: "It's a good name, Delia is. It'll be plumb popular down Old Mississip', d'rectly Miss Delia, Mrs. Delia, and Delia! Yas, suh! I expect hit'll be a regular old tangle-tongue name!"
"What do you mean by that?"
"You're a pretty girl, and you're alone, and you're a soft-paw on the river," Mrs. Mahna observed, shrewdly. "But I expect you-all can take care of yourself, you look real handy, thataway. There's lots of girls come down Old Mississippi that can't take care of themselves, so they gets took care of, but you—sho! you make me think of Big Sue."
Delia's lips pursed doubtfully, and then they smiled
