"And you like your work, don't you?"
Again he noticed the shadow on her face. "I reckon so—as well as I'd like any work." People were always frank with Philip. "A gal gits kind o' tired of workin' all the time, though. I make dresses and trim hats for most of the ladies round about, now, and they pay me good, too. But...."
"But it's all work and no play, eh?"
"That's it," she said, grateful for his understanding. "I don't never have no fun. I ain't got no gen'leman friends, nor nothing. What's the use of havin' good clothes, and lookin' pretty and all, ef you don't get to go somewhere so that folks kin see you? I'm tired of bein' looked down on," she complained fretfully. "I ain't got a friend on this place 'cep'n Miss Jacky, and now she—"
Mag stopped short. Philip wondered what she had been about to say, but he was too good a confessor to force confidences.
"You've always got the Madam," he said.
"Yes, but she don't care nothing about me. She's kind enough, but so's she kind to any cur dog that comes along. What am I to her?"
"You've got your baby, Mag."
But the childish, fretful face did not soften. "Babies are more trouble than company to a person. Besides, she likes Miss Jacky now bettern't her own mammy. She cries to go to her from me.—It's fun I want, like other gals. Everybody, it seems like, has fun but me, even the niggers. Parties, and picnics, and weddin's and all—Oh, my, but don't I wisht I was Miss Jemmy!"
Evidently the wedding preparations had stirred longings in more hearts than Philip's.