"Where is Virginia?"
"Dat I can't bery well say, Miss Salina," replied Toby, scratching his woolly head. He would never sacrifice his family pride so far as to call her Mrs. Sprowl.
"How dare you come back without her?" And she heaped upon him the bitterest reproaches. It was he who, through his cowardice, had been the cause of Virginia's night adventure. It was he who had ruined everything by concealing her departure until it was too late. Then he might have found her, if he had so resolved. But if he could not, why had he remained absent all day?
Under this sharp fire of accusations Toby stood with ludicrous indifference, grinning, and scratching his head. At length he scratched out of it a little roll of paper that had been confided to his wool for safe keeping, in case he should be seized and searched. It fell upon the floor. He hastily snatched it up, and gave it, with obsequious alacrity, to Mrs. Sprowl. She took, unrolled it, and read. It was a pencilled note in the handwriting of Virginia.
"Dear Sister: Thanks to a kind Providence and to kind friends, we are safe. I was rescued last night from the most frightful dangers in the burning woods. I had come, without your knowledge, to get news of our dear father. I am now with him. He has excellent shelter, and devoted attendants; but the comforts of his home are wanting, and I have learned how much he is dependent upon us for his happiness. For this reason I shall remain with him as long as I can. To relieve your mind we send Toby back to you. V."
That evening Captain Sprowl entered the house of the absent Mr. Villars with the air of one who had just come into possession of that little piece of property. He nodded with satisfaction at the walls, glanced approvingly at the furniture, curved his lip rather contemptuously at the books (as much as to say, "I'll sell off all that sort of rubbish"), and expressed decided pleasure at sight of old Toby. "Worth eight hundred dollars, that nigger is!" He had either forgotten that Mr. Villars had given Toby his freedom, or he believed that, under the new order of things, in a confederacy founded on slavery, such gifts would not be held valid.
"Well, Sallie, my girl,"—throwing himself into the old clergyman's easy chair,—"here we are at home! Bring me the bootjack, Toby."
"I don't know about your being at home!" said Salina, indignantly.