"Not much. Miss 'Lina will be so lofty. Jes' you listen and hear her call me oncet. 'Ho Loo-loo, come quick,' jes' as if she done nothin' all her life but order a nigger 'round. I knows better. I knows how she done made her own bed, combed her own ha'r, and like enough washed her own rags afore she comed here. Yes, 'Loo-loo is coming,'" and the saucy wench darted off to 'Lina screaming loudly for her.
"Miss Worthington," Adah said, timidly, as 'Lina came near, "Lulu tells me she is going North with you. Why not take me instead of her?"
"You!" and 'Lina's black eyes flashed scornfully. "What in the world could I do with you and that child, and what would people think? Why, I'd rather have Lulu forty times. A negro gives anéclatto one's position which a white servant cannot. By the way, here is Miss Tiffton's square-necked bertha. She's just got home from New York, and says they are all the fashion. You are to cut me a pattern. There's a paper, the Louisville Journal, I guess, but nobody reads it, now Hugh is gone," and with a few more general directions, 'Lina hurried away leaving Adah so hot, so disappointed, that the hot tears fell upon the paper she took in her hand, the paper containing Anna Richards' advertisement, intended solely for the poor girl sitting so lonely and sad at Spring Bank that summer morning.
In spite of the doctor's predictions and consignment of that girl to Georgia, or some warmer place, it had reached her at last. She did not see it at first, so fast her tears fell, but just as her scissors were raised to cut the pattern her eyes fell on the spot headed, "A Curious Advertisement," and suspending her operations for a moment, she read it through, a feeling rising in her heart that it was surely an answer to her own advertisement, sent forth months ago, with tearful prayers that it might be successful.
At the table she heard 'Lina say that Claib was going to town that afternoon, and thinking within herself. "If a letter were only ready, he could take it with him," she asked permission to write a few lines. It would not take her long, she said, and she could work the later to make it up.
'Lina did not refuse, and in a few moments Adah penned a note to A.E.R.
"It's an answer to an advertisement for a governess or waiting maid," she said, as 'Lina glanced carelessly at the superscription.
"It will do no harm, or good either, I imagine," was 'Lina'a reply, and placing the letter in her pocket, she was about returning to her mother, when she spied Ellen Tiffton dismounting at the gate.
Ellen was delighted to see 'Lina, and 'Lina was delighted to see Ellen, leading her at once into the work-room, where Adah sat by the window, busy on the bertha, and looking up quietly when Ellen entered, as if half expecting an introduction. But 'Lina did not deign to notice her, save in an aside to Ellen, to whom she whispered softly:
"That girl, Adah, you know."