Maria spoke in a sort of sententious wisdom which did not satisfy me at all. I thought there was something behind.
"Who is doing the work, Maria?" I asked, after a minute.
"Miss Daisy," she said, "dere ain't no happenin' at all widout de Lord lets it happen. Dere is much contrairy in dis world—fact, dere is; but I 'spect de Lord make it up to us by'm by."
And she turned her face full upon me with a smile of so much quiet resting in that truth, that for just a moment it silenced me.
"Miss Daisy ain't looking quite so peart as she use to look," Maria went on. But I slipped away from that diversion.
"Maria," I said, "you don't tell me what is the matter; and I wish to know. What keeps the people, Pete, and Eliza, and all, from coming? What hinders them, Maria? I wish to know."
Maria busied herself with her fish for a minute, turning and washing it; then, without looking up from her work, she said, in a lowered tone,—
"'Spect de overseer, he don't hab no favour to such ways and meetin's."
"But with me?" I said; "and with Aunt Gary's leave?"
"'Spose he like to fix t'ings his own way," said Maria.