“Indeed! Surely not the household coffee. You cannot drink such a quantity!”
Sally stared for a minute; then opened her mouth, shut her eyes, threw back her head, and chuckled.
“No,” she said, with sudden gravity; “if we drink’d it all we’d all bu’st right off. I pounds it, Missis Lilly sells it, an’ massa pockets de money.”
“Do you pound much?” asked Hester, in a tone of sympathy.
“Oh! housefuls,” said Sally, opening her eyes wide. “’Gin at daylight—work till dark, ’cept when doin’ oder t’ings. De Moors drink it. Awrful drinkers am de Moors. Mornin’, noon, an’ night dey swill leetle cups ob coffee. Das de reason dey’s all so brown.”
“Indeed? I never heard before that the brown-ness of their complexion was owing to that. Are you sure?”
“Oh yes; kite sure. Coffee comes troo de skin—das it,” returned Sally, with perfect confidence of tone and manner.
Suddenly she was smitten with a new idea, and stared for some time at her fellow-slave. At last she got it out.
“Missis Lilly say dat you’s dumb. How kin you speak so well if you’s dumb?”
Poor Hester was greatly perplexed. She did not know how far her companion had been let into the secret reason of her being there, and was afraid to answer. At last she made up her mind.