"To what?—To fortunes like yours?"
"To bread and cheese at least, sir," returned Alice, pertly.
"Well, but you've had something better than bread and cheese."
"I don't make no complaints as to the style of livin' in the house, sir, but that's all one, so long as it's on the vile condition of domestic slavery—which it's nothing can justify."
"Then of course, although you are now a woman of property, you will never dream of having any one to wait on you," said her master, amused with the volume of human nature thus opened to him.
"All I say, sir, is—it's my turn now; and I ain't goin' to be sit upon by no one. I know my dooty to myself."
"I didn't know there was such a duty, Alice," said her master.
Something in his tone displeased her.
"Then you know now, sir," she said, and bounced out of the room.
The next moment, however, ashamed of her rudeness, she re-entered, saying,