"Minny, how very, very white you are! How came you to be so white, when your mother is the blackest slave papa owns?"
A scarlet flush rose to the quadroon's cheek.
"My father, Miss, was as white as your own."
"Were you born here, Minn?"
"My mother was in your father's service when she gave me birth, Miss Della. Will you have your bandeaux single or double for this evening?"
"Double, Minn, so the wreath can lie nicely in between; and make those braids as rich as possible. I wish to look my best to-night. You have always lived here since you were born, Minn?—was a baby when I was a baby?"
"Yes, my dear Miss, and my mother was your nurse; your own mother not liking to spoil her figure by nursing her child, you were put to my mother's breast. So mother tells me."
"Well, if you had been a white child, that would have made us foster-sisters, wouldn't it? That's the reason old Mag loves me so well. I never knew of this before."
"It's something very common here, you know, Miss, for white children to have their foster-mothers among the slaves. Fashionable ladies always think it ruins their forms to have a child at the breast."