As he looked after her, the Governor's face clouded, and he sighed beneath his breath. The cares she met with such serenity had been too heavy for her strength; they had driven the bloom from her cheeks and the lustre from her eyes; and, though she had not faltered at her task, she had drooped daily and grown older than her years. The master might live with a lavish disregard of the morrow, not the master's wife. For him were the open house, the shining table, the well-stocked wine cellar and the morning rides over the dewy fields; for her the cares of her home and children, and of the souls and bodies of the black people that had been given into her hands. In her gentle heart it seemed to her that she had a charge to keep before her God; and she went her way humbly, her thoughts filled with things so vital as the uses of her medicine chest and the unexpounded mysteries of salvation.
Now, as she reached the upper landing, she met Betty running to look for her.
“O, mamma, may I go to fish with Champe and the new boy and Big Abel? And Virginia wants to go, too, she says.”
“Wait a moment, child,” said Mrs. Ambler. “You have torn the trimming on your frock. Stand still and I'll mend it for you,” and she got out her needle and sewed up the rent, while Betty hopped impatiently from foot to foot.
“I think the new boy's a heap nicer than Champe, mamma,” she remarked as she waited.
“Do you, dear?”
“An' he says I'm nicer than Champe, too. He fought Champe 'cause he said I didn't have as much sense as he had—an' I have, haven't I, mamma?”
“Women do not need as much sense as men, my dear,” replied Mrs. Ambler, taking a dainty stitch.
“Well, anyway, Dan fought Champe about it,” said Betty, with pride. “He'll fight about 'most anything, he says, if he jest gets roused—an' that cert'n'y did rouse him. His nose bled a long time, too, and Champe whipped him, you know. But, when it was over, I asked him if I had as much sense as he had, and he said, 'Psha! you're just a girl.' Wasn't that funny, mamma?”
“There, there, Betty,” was Mrs. Ambler's rejoinder. “I'm afraid he's a wicked boy, and you mustn't get such foolish thoughts into your head. If the Lord had wanted you to be clever, He would have made you a man. Now, run away, and don't get your feet wet; and if you see Aunt Lydia in the garden, you may tell her that the bonnet has come for her to look at.”