"She can go away—she can find happiness elsewhere. O, is there not somewhere in the wide world a place of beautiful peace?" groaned the unhappy man to himself, while his eyes wandered involuntarily toward the white column that gleamed in the sunlight nearly a mile distant. By an effort the master recovered himself.
"So she has sent you down to be with Bet, and Nan, and Kizzie, and Sam, Jake, Jim, and all those fellows? You can't live there a month. Would you like your freedom, China? Would you like to go to Richmond—you could get plenty of places, either as nurse or seamstress?"
"O, master Duncan, I should die if I had to leave Kennons"—for this first thought of complete separation from all she had known and loved was intolerable.
"You can try it then down yonder. I will ride down to-night or to-morrow, and speak to Mr. Fuller. You can be thinking it over. You have been a good girl—I owe you something. If you can't stand it there—and I know you can't—I will give you papers of manumission and money to take you to Richmond. You have a close mouth—do not speak of this. Well, keep up heart and God bless you."
The master and servant parted—the one to ride wearily to his unpeaceful home, the other to journey along more hopefully to the shadeless cabins in the fields.
CHAPTER XIV.
CHINA—UNCLE MAT'S PRAYER MEETING.
Compared to the field-hands, who were little more than heathen and barbarian, our favorite China was a princess. One day and night among them proved to the unhappy girl that her master was in the right—she could not live with them. If she had met with suspicion, jealousy, and envy beneath her master's roof, she could not expect to escape it in her new home, where ignorance and all the baser passions ruled.