"Ah! But, Lisette, all this pretty house of ours, garden, and everything, is only built on air, after all, till we are free. Any accident can take it from us. Now, there's Miss Nina; she is engaged, she tells me, to two or three lovers, as usual."
"Engaged, is she?" said Lisette, eagerly, female curiosity getting the better of every other consideration; "she always did have lovers, just, you know, as I used to."
"Yes; but, Lisette, she will marry, some time, and what a thing that would be for you and me! On her husband will depend all my happiness for all my life. He may set her against me; he may not like me. Oh, Lisette! I've seen trouble enough coming of marriages; and I was hoping, you see, that before that time came the money for my freedom would all be paid in, and I should be my own man. But, now, here it is. Just as the sum is almost made up, I must pay out five hundred dollars of it, and that throws us back two or three years longer. And what makes me feel the most anxious is, that I'm pretty sure Miss Nina will marry one of these lovers before long."
"Why, what makes you think so, Harry?"
"Oh, I've seen girls before now, Lisette, and I know the signs."
"What does she do? What does she say? Tell me, now, Harry."
"Oh, well, she runs on abusing the man, after her sort; and she's so very earnest and positive in telling me she don't like him."
"Just the way I used to do about you, Harry, isn't it?"
"Besides," said Harry, "I know, by the kind of character she gives of him, that she thinks of him very differently from what she ever did of any man before. Miss Nina little knows, when she is rattling about her beaux, what I'm thinking of. I'm saying, all the while, to myself, 'Is that man going to be my master?' and this Clayton, I'm very sure, is going to be my master."