"None o' yer sass here!" said Maum Zoë, with a flashing glance.
"You take my rabbit, you mus' hab my sass," answered Flor, delicacy not being ingrain with her. "W'at 'ud I cut for to de swamps, d' ye s'pose?" she said, slapping the soles of her feet in her emphasis, and pausing for breath. "Dar neber was a lash laid on dat back"——
"No fault o' dat back, dough," interposed Aunt Zoë.
"Dar neber was a lash on dat back. Dar a'n't a person on de place hab sich treatem as dis yere Limb o' yourn. Miss Emma done gib me her red ribbins on'y Sa'd'y for my har. An' Mas'r Henry, he jus' pass an' say to me, 'Dono w'at Miss Emma 'd do widout ye, Lomy. Scairt, ye hussy!' So!"
"'Zackly. We's 'mos' w'ite, we be! How much dey do make ob us up to de house! De leopard hab change him spots, an' we hab change our skin! W'at 's de use o' bein' free, w'en we's w'ite folks a'ready? Tell me dat!" said Aunt Zoë, turning on her witheringly, rising from a deep curtsy and smoothing down her apron. "Tell ye w'at, ye Debil's spinster!" added she, with a sudden change of tone, as Flor began to mimic one of Miss Agatha's opera-tunes and with her hands on her hips slowly balance up and down the room, and came at last, bending far on one side, to leer up in the face of her elder with such a smile as Cubas was wont to give her Spanish lover in the dance. "So mighty free wid yer dancin', 'pears like you'll come to dance at a rope's end! W'at's de use o' talkin' to you? 'Mortal sperit, it 's my b'lief dat ar mockin'-bird in de branches hab as good a lookout!"
"Heap better," said Flor acquiescently, and beginning to hold a whistling colloquy with the hidden voice.
"You won't bring him down wid yer tunes. He knows w'en he's well off; he's free, he is,—swingin' onto de bough, an' 'gwine whar he like."
"Leet de chil' alone, Zoë," said a superannuated old woman sitting in the corner by the fire always smouldering on Zoë's hearth, and leaning her white head on her cane. "You be berrer showin' her her duty in her place dan be makin' her discontented."
"She doan' make me disconnected, Maum Susie," said Flor. "'F he's free, w'at's he stayin' here for? Dar 's law for dat. Doan' want none o' yer free niggers hangin' roun' dis yere. Chirrup!"
"Dar's a right smart chance ob 'em, dough, jus' now," said Aunt Zoë, chuckling at first, and then breaking into the most boisterous of laughs, "Seems like we's all ob us, ebery one, free as Sarp hisse'f. Mas'r Linkum say so. Yah, ha, ha!"