"She shall sleep in our daughter's bed and rest her poor feet this night—our daughter, James, that we buried."
The man's mouth puckered a little; he looked uneasy, and drew his handkerchief to his eyes.
"You're all agin me! you're all agin me!" he bellowed, and rushed from the room.
The wife of Devil Jim Clark was a pious Methodist, and, with her rich-eyed daughter, spent the next day at Virgie's bedside, hearing her broken mutterings for fatherly love and Vesta's cherished remembrance.
"Your father is out for mischief," Mrs. Clark said. "Jump on your saddle-horse, my daughter, and ride to the Widow Brinkley's, just over the Camden line. Tell her to send for this girl."
"Mamma, they say she's an abolitionist."
"That's what I send you for. It's a race between you and your father. Be with me or with him!"
The girl tied on her hood, took her riding-whip, and departed.
In an hour she returned with a tidy black woman, whom Mrs. Clark took into Virgie's chamber.