Zina. I feel so much better when I can cry.
D’A. So did you cry when our Nelly died, yet you had done no wrong.
Zina (hesitatingly). She was such a sister to me, when I was only a miserable slave. She learned me to sing and your mother learned me to read—
D’A. And you have repaid my poor, helpless old mother with so many beautiful songs—
Zina. How else can I pay her for all that makes sunshine for my miserable life?
D’A. Zina, you are a noble girl. Too good and pure for labor among the coarse field hands. Heaven never made you for this. Your brain and voice came from Him who gives such gifts for a nobler purpose. To scatter happiness as He scatters beautiful wild flowers in the uninviting nooks of the earth.
Zina. Oh, I do not know what to say, Master D’Arneaux, you are so good to me. (Zina rises.) If you buy me, may I have a little bed of flowers? I will take care of them when there is no work to do.
D’A. All the flowers you please, little one, where you like, and your own time to work in them.
Zina. Oh, I am so glad! I forget all my misery and unhappiness when I am doing that.
D’A. It is an evidence of a pure and noble heart to love the beautiful.