"Well, Miss Nina, I am going on my travels in de morning. Thought I must have a little time to see you, lamb, 'fore I goes."
"I can't bear to have you go, Milly! I don't like that man you are going with."
"I 'spects he's a nice man," said Milly. "Of course he'll look me out a nice place, because he has always took good care of Miss Loo's affairs. So you never trouble yourself 'bout me! I tell you, chile, I never gets where I can't find de Lord; and when I finds Him, I gets along. 'De Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.'"
"But you have never been used to living except in our family," said Nina, "and, somehow, I feel afraid. If they don't treat you well, come back Milly; will you?"
"Laws, chile, I isn't much feared but what I'll get along well enough. When people keep about dere business, doing de best dey ken, folks doesn't often trouble dem. I never yet seed de folks I couldn't suit," she added, with a glow of honest pride. "No, chile, it isn't for myself I's fearing; it's just for you, chile. Chile, you don't know what it is to live in dis yer world, and I wants you to get de Best Friend to go with you. Why, dear lamb, you wants somebody to go to and open your heart; somebody dat'll love you, and always stand by you; somebody dat'll always lead you right, you know. You has more cares than such a young thing ought for to have; great many looking to you, and 'pending on you. Now, if your ma was alive, it would be different; but, just now, I see how 'tis; dere'll be a hundred things you'll be thinking and feeling, and nobody to say 'em to. And now, chile, you must learn to go to de Lord. Why, chile, He loves you! Chile, He loves you just as you be; if you only saw how much, it would melt your heart right down. I told you I was going some time fur to tell you my sperience—how I first found Jesus. Oh Lord, Lord! but it is along story."
Nina, whose quick sympathies were touched by the earnestness of her old friend, and still more aroused by the allusion to her mother, answered,—
"Oh, yes, come, tell me about it!" And, drawing a low ottoman, she sat down, and laid her head on the lap of her humble friend.
"Well, well, you see, chile," said Milly, her large, dark eyes fixing themselves on vacancy, and speaking in a slow and dreamy voice, "a body's life, in dis yer world, is a mighty strange thing! You see, chile, my mother—well, dey brought her from Africa; my father, too. Heaps and heaps my mother has told me about dat ar. Dat ar was a mighty fine country, where dey had gold in the rivers, and such great, big, tall trees, with de strangest beautiful flowers on them you ever did see! Laws, laws! well, dey brought my mother and my father into Charleston, and dere Mr. Campbell,—dat was your ma's father, honey,—he bought dem right out of de ship; but dey had five children, and dey was all sold, and dey never knowed where dey went to. Father and mother couldn't speak a word of English when dey come ashore; and she told me often how she couldn't speak a word to nobody, to tell 'em how it hurt her.
"Laws, when I was a chile, I 'member how often, when de day's work was done, she used to come out and sit and look up at de stars, and groan, groan, and groan! I was a little thing, playing round; and I used to come up to her, dancing, and saying,—