"You seem so like a sister," he said, smoothing her soft brown hair, "that I shall be sorry to lose you, and shall miss you so much, but Miss Johnson thinks it right for you to go. Will you take Sam as an escort?"
"Oh, no, no; I don't want anybody," Adah cried, "Keep Sam with you, and if in time I should earn enough to buy him, to free him. Oh, will you sell him to me,—not to keep," she added, quickly, as she saw the quizzical expression of Hugh's face,—"not to keep. I would not own a slave—but to free, to tell him he's his own master. Will you, Hugh?"
He answered with a smile:
"I thought once as you do, that I would not own my brother, but we get hardened to these things. I've never sold one yet."
"But you will. You'll sell me Sam," and Adah, in her eagerness, grasped his hand.
"I'll give him to you," Hugh said. "Call him, Miss Johnson."
Alice obeyed, and Sam came hobbling in, listening in amazement to Hugh's question.
"Would you like to be free, my boy?"
There was a sudden flush on the old man's cheek, and then he answered, meekly:
"Thanky', Mas'r Hugh. It comed a'most too late. Years ago, when Sam was young and peart, de berry smell of freedom make de sap bump through de veins like trip-hammer. Den, world all before, now world all behind. Nothing but t'other side of Jordan before. 'Bleeged to you, berry much, but when mas'r bought ole Sam for pity, ole Sam feel in his bones that some time he pay Mas'r Hugh; he don't know how, but it be's comin'. Sam knows it. I'm best off here."