"Yes, I know, Minn; and I think it a very shameful practice, too. I never want to be a fashionable woman, if it is going to deprive me of performing a mother's holiest offices for my children. I'm sure after a child of mine had been reared at a black mother's breast I should feel they were black children, had black blood in their veins, and I never could feel right toward them again."
"You are one in a thousand, dear Miss Della; and such
feelings are right, and good, and noble. But if you ever wish to be truly a mother to your children, don't marry a fashionable man, whose pride will be to show you off all the time in gay company, and who will be always fretting to keep your beauty good. It is such husbands that make bad mothers. A woman can't be a votary of fashion and a good mother."
"I never shall marry a fashionable man, Minny—you know that; but when I do marry I shall try and be a good, and true, and dutiful wife, nothing more. I haven't a taste for high life—that is, gay life, which has no heart in it. But, Minny, let's go back to you; I commenced about you; what made you change the subject, child?"
"Did I, Miss?"
"Yes. Who was your father, Minny?"
Minny's cheek lost it's flush, and became pale as death.
"I cannot tell you, Miss."
"But you know."
Minny made no answer, but her hands shook violently, and the braids she had just fastened fell loose again from her trembling fingers.