"But in what respect? I do not understand."
"She was a favorite slave, was she not?"
"Yes—that is to say, she was a very faithful servant to my late father, and was very well treated. But what has that to do with it?"
"Why, that she probably expected to be left free by your father's will."
"And that accounts for her anxiety that the will should be found."
"I think so."
"What a fool that woman must be! Free, indeed! Why should she want to be free—at her age, too. What can be her object? What would she do if she were free? How in the world came she to get such an idea into her head? Who could have put it there, do you think?"
"No one, I suppose."
"But how should she ever think of such nonsense as her freedom?"
"It is a notion they all have, I believe."