"There used to be some people, when I was up at the north, who talked as if all of us were no better than a pack of robbers and thieves. And, of course, when I was there I was strong for our institutions, and would not give them an inch of ground. It set me to thinking, though; and the result of my thinking is, that we have no right to hold those to work for us who clearly can do better. Now, there's Aunt Nesbit's Milly—there's Harry and Lisette. Why, it's clear enough, if they can support themselves and us too, they certainly can support themselves alone. Lisette has paid eight dollars a month to her mistress, and supported herself besides. I'm sure it's we that are the helpless ones!"
"Well, do you think your Aunt Nesbit is going to follow your example?"
"No! catch her at it! Aunt Nesbit is doubly fortified in her religion. She is so satisfied with something or other about 'cursed be Canaan,' that she'd let Milly earn ten dollars a month for her, all the year round, and never trouble her head about taking every bit of it. Some folks, you know, have a way of calling everything they want to do a dispensation of providence! Now, Aunt Nesbit is one of 'em. She always calls it a dispensation that the negroes were brought over here, and a dispensation that we are the mistresses. Ah! Milly will not get free while Aunt Nesbit is alive! And do you know, though it does not seem very generous in me, yet I'm resigned to it, because Milly is such a good soul, and such a comfort to me?—do you know she seems a great deal more like a mother to me than Aunt Nesbit? Why, I really think, if Milly had been educated as we are, she would have made a most splendid woman—been a perfect Candace queen of Ethiopia. There's a vast deal that is curious and interesting in some of these old Africans. I always did love to be with them; some of them are so shrewd and original! But I wonder, now, what Tom will think of my cutting him out so neatly? 'Twill make him angry, I suppose."
"Oh, perhaps, after all, he had no real intention of doing anything of the kind," said Clayton. "He may have said it merely for bravado."
"I should have thought so, if I hadn't known that he always had a grudge against Harry."
At this moment the galloping of a horse was heard in the woodland path before them; and very soon Tom Gordon appeared in sight accompanied by another man, on horseback, with whom he was in earnest conversation. There was something about the face of this man which, at the first glance, Nina felt to be very repulsive. He was low, thickset, and yet lean; his features were thin and sharp; his hair and eyebrows bushy and black, and a pair of glassy, pale-blue eyes formed a peculiar contrast to their darkness. There was something in the expression of the eye which struck Nina as hard and cold. Though the man was habited externally as a gentleman, there was still about him an under-bred appearance, which could be detected at the first glance, as the coarseness of some woods will reveal themselves through every varnish.
"Good-morrow, Nina," said her brother, drawing his horse up to meet hers, and signing to his companion to arrest his, also. "Allow me to present to you my friend, Mr. Jekyl. We are going out to visit the Belleville plantation."
"I wish you a pleasant ride!" said Nina. And, touching her horse, she passed them in a moment. Looking back almost fiercely, a moment, she turned and said to Clayton:
"I hate that man!"