“This, you see, accounts for what might appear incredible to civilized persons. If you will do me a favor, you will burn this little book, as soon as you have read what I have written here. If my request is not granted, I can only implore you to let no eyes but your own see these pages. My life might be in danger if the blacks knew what I have now told you, in the interests of truth.”
Francine closed the book, and locked it up again in her desk. “Now I know,” she said to herself, “what reminded me of St. Domingo.”
When Francine rang her bell the next morning, so long a time elapsed without producing an answer that she began to think of sending one of the house-servants to make inquiries. Before she could decide, Mrs. Ellmother presented herself, and offered her apologies.
“It’s the first time I have overslept myself, miss, since I was a girl. Please to excuse me, it shan’t happen again.”
“Do you find that the air here makes you drowsy?” Francine asked.
Mrs. Ellmother shook her head. “I didn’t get to sleep,” she said, “till morning, and so I was too heavy to be up in time. But air has got nothing to do with it. Gentlefolks may have their whims and fancies. All air is the same to people like me.”
“You enjoy good health, Mrs. Ellmother?”
“Why not, miss? I have never had a doctor.”
“Oh! That’s your opinion of doctors, is it?”
“I won’t have anything to do with them—if that’s what you mean by my opinion,” Mrs. Ellmother answered doggedly. “How will you have your hair done?”