‘It is quite well, Jessica, although it is very weakly, and I am not at all sure of rearing it.’
‘A good ting if it die,’ said the nurse; ‘and if all such babies died, Missy Liz—we’ve no room for them here.’
‘You shouldn’t say that, Jessica,’ returned Lizzie mildly; ‘for it may be God’s will that it should live.’
‘Better say good ting if its fader died!’ exclaimed Jerusha. ‘That’s the sort we’ve no room for. Ah, Missy Liz, no use you opening your eyes like dat. We know plenty on dis plantation, we do!—and we know de good from de bad too, and may de Lord help us to root ’em out.’
‘Have you any special enemy here then, Jerusha?’ demanded Lizzie.
‘Yes, I have,’ replied the coolie, with dogged determination. ‘Massa Courcelles is my special enemy, and I hate him!’
‘Monsieur de Courcelles, Jerusha? Has he been unkind to you, or done you any wrong?’
‘He has done me dis wrong!’ cried Jerusha, holding out her baby. ‘He has given me dis chile, and blows on the top of it!’
She would have said more, but Lizzie put her hand to her head, and, with a low cry, passed swiftly from them. The women gazed after her in astonishment. They could not understand a nature without any feeling of revenge in it,—with only the deepest pain for the sins of one it loved, and a horror of hearing them mentioned by others. They thought that Lizzie had misunderstood them, or had not heard aright.
‘Dat’s funny!’ exclaimed Jerusha. ‘’Pears I didn’t put things right, or she would have smacked little Henri on the head, or killed him dead, as I’d like to kill dat baby at de bungalow.’