At length Fabiola raised her head, which seemed to have been bowed down in accompaniment to her mind, and with graceful kindness said:
“Syra, I am sure I have not yet reached the depths of your knowledge; you must have much more to teach me.” (A tear and a blush came to the poor handmaid’s relief.) “But to-day you have opened a new world, and a new life, to my thoughts. A sphere of virtue beyond the opinions and the judgments of men, a consciousness of a controlling, an approving, and a rewarding Power too; am I right?” (Syra expressed approbation,) “standing by us when no other eye can see, or restrain, or encourage us; a feeling that, were we shut up forever in solitude, we should be ever the same, because that influence on us must be so superior to that of any amount of human principles, in guiding us, and could not leave us; such, if I understand your theory, is the position of moral elevation, in which it would place each individual. To fall below it, even with an outwardly virtuous life, is mere deceit, and positive wickedness. Is this so?”
“O my dear mistress,” exclaimed Syra, “how much better you can express all this than I!”
“You have never flattered me yet, Syra,” replied Fabiola, smilingly; “do not begin now. But you have thrown a new light upon other subjects, till to-day obscure to me. Tell me, now, was it not this you meant, when you once told me that in your view there was no distinction between mistress and slave; that is, that as the distinction is only outward, bodily and social, it is not to be put in comparison with that equality which exists before your Supreme Being, and that possible moral superiority which He might see of the one over the other, inversely of their visible rank?”
“It was in a great measure so, my noble lady; though there are other considerations involved in the idea, which would hardly interest you at present.”
“And yet, when you stated that proposition, it seemed to me so monstrous, so absurd, that pride and anger overcame me. Do you remember that, Syra?”
“Oh, no, no!” replied the gentle servant; “do not allude to it, I pray!”
“Have you forgiven me that day, Syra?” said the mistress, with an emotion quite new to her.
The poor maid was overpowered. She rose and threw herself on her knees before her mistress, and tried to seize her hand; but she prevented her, and, for the first time in her life, Fabiola threw herself upon a slave’s neck, and wept.
Her passion of tears was long and tender. Her heart was getting above her intellect; and this can only be by its increasing softness. At length she grew calm; and as she withdrew her embrace she said: