"Certainly I will," said Nina.
It was yet an early hour, when a large circle of family and plantation hands gathered together in the pleasant, open saloon, which we have so often described. The day was a beautiful one; the leaves and shrubbery round the veranda moist and tremulous with the glittering freshness of morning dew. There was a murmur of tenderness and admiration as Nina, in a white morning-wrapper, and a cheek as white, came into the room.
"Sit down, all my friends," she said, "sit down," looking at some of the plantation men, who seemed to be diffident about taking the sofa, which was behind them; "it's no time for ceremony now. We are standing on the brink of the grave, where all are equal. I'm glad to see you so calm and so brave. I hope your trust is in the Saviour, who gives us the victory over death. Sing," she said. Milly began the well-known hymn:
"And must this feeble body fail,
And must it faint and die?
My soul shall quit this gloomy vale,
And soar to realms on high;
"Shall join the disembodied saints,
And find its long-sought rest;
That only rest for which it pants,