AT the end of the week, Zebby came home, according to appointment; and having paid her respects to her excellent lady, she ran up stairs, and entered the apartment where the two young ladies were getting the tasks assigned them by Mrs. Harewood. When Matilda first beheld her she had a great inclination to embrace her, for her heart bounded towards the only creature she had been acquainted with from her cradle; but she suddenly checked herself, and pretended to continue her reading; but Ellen spoke to her kindly, though she told her that she was so situated, as not to be able to chat at present.
Zebby comprehended this, and would have withdrawn; but not to have a single word from her, whom in her heart, she still considered as her young mistress, the faithful creature could not endure; after waiting some minutes in vain, she dropped a second humble courtesy, and said—“How you do, Missy? me very glad see you larn booky, but me hopes you spare one look, one wordy, for poor Zebby; me go away one long weeky, to nurse white man baby, pretty as you, Missy.”
“Yes,” said Matilda, reproachingly, “you went away and left me very willingly, though it was to wait on a person you never saw before.”
“Ah, Missy! you no lovee me, and poor white woman lovee me much. You makee beer spit in my face—she givee me tea-gruel out of her own cup. You callee me black beetle—she callee me good girly, good nursy, good every ting.”
Matilda gave a deep sigh; she well remembered that it was on the very day of her outrage that Zebby had quitted her, and in her altered sense of justice, she could not help seeing the truth of the poor negro’s statement; she looked up, with an ingenuous sense of error depicted on her countenance, and said—“I am sorry, Zebby, that I used you so ill, but I will never do it again.”
The poor African was absolutely astonished, for never had the voice of concession been heard from the lips of Matilda before, even to her own parents; and the idea of her humility and kindness in this acknowledgment so deeply affected the faithful creature, that, after gazing at her in admiration for a moment, she burst into tears, and then clasping her hands, she exclaimed, in a broken manner—“Oh, tankee God! tankee God! pretty Missy be good girly at last! her lovee her good mamma—her pity poor negro—her go up stair when her die. Oh, me be so glad! great God lovee my dear Missy now!”
Matilda felt the tears suffuse her own eyes, as the kind heart of her late faithful slave thus gave vent to its natural and devout emotions; and she gave her hand to Zebby, who kissed it twenty times. Ellen was so delighted with this proof of good disposition in Matilda, and with the honest effusions of the poor negro, that she could not forbear gratifying her own affectionate little heart, by running to tell her dear mamma, who truly rejoiced in every proof of Matilda’s amendment, and doubted not but it would prove the forerunner of virtue, in a child who appeared convinced of her faults, and desirous of improving herself.
It was now near Christmas, and Mrs. Harewood was inquiring for a boarding-school where she could place Miss Hanson. She would have preferred to keep her at home, and have a governess, who might attend to the instructions necessary both for her and Ellen; but the bad temper and insolent airs of Matilda had prevented this, as Mrs. Harewood could not bear the idea of subjecting an amiable young person, whom she designed for that situation, to be tormented with such a girl. She knew that, in schools, two faults seldom fail to be cured: these are impertinence, or insolence, and affectation—one rendering a person disagreeable, the other ridiculous; and every member in the community of which a school consists, is ready to assist the ruler in punishing the one, and laughing at the other.
One morning, when Matilda got out of bed, she went to look whether the morning was fine, and the moment she got to the window, eagerly cried out, in great surprise—“Ellen, Ellen! get up this moment, and come to the window; the whole world is covered with white! and see, there are thousands and thousands of little white feathers coming from the skies, as if the angels were emptying feather-beds upon the earth.”
“It snows,” said Ellen, calmly; “I recollect my papa told us you had never seen it snow.”