Night before last Mrs. Mills invited me to a family dinner. Colonel
Mills was away, but Mr. Hughes was there, also Lieutenant Harvey to
whom Miss Mills is engaged, and the three Mills boys, making a nice
little party. But I felt rather sad--Faye was still en route to
Washington, and going farther from home every hour, and it was
impossible to tell when he would return, Mrs. Mills seemed distraite,
too, when I first got to the house, but she soon brightened up and was
as animated as ever. The dinner was perfect. Colonel Mills is quite an
epicure, and he and Mrs. Mills have a reputation for serving choice
and dainty things on their table. We returned to the little parlor
after dinner, and were talking and laughing, when something went bang!
like the hard shutting of a door.
Mrs. Mills jumped up instantly and exclaimed, "I knew it--I knew it!"
and rushed to the back part of the house, the rest of us running after
her. She went on through to the Chinaman's room, and there, on his
cot, lay the little man, his face even then the color of old ivory. He
had fired a small Derringer straight to his heart and was quite dead.
I did not like to look at the dying man, so I ran for the doctor and
almost bumped against him at the gate as he was passing. There was
nothing that he could do, however.
Mrs. Mills told us that Sam had been an inveterate gambler--that he
had won a great deal of money from the soldiers, particularly one, who
had that very day threatened to kill him, accusing the Chinaman of
having cheated.
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