been so incautious. As it was, she had
dropped a thought into Flor's head to ferment there and do its work. It
was almost the first time in her life that the girl had heard freedom
discussed as anything but a doubtful privilege. First awakening to
consciousness in this state, it was with effort and only lately she had
comprehended that there could be any other: a different condition from
one in which Miss Emma was mistress and she was maid seemed at first
preposterous, then fabulous, and still unnatural: nevertheless, there
was a flavor of wicked pleasure in the thought. Flor looked with a sort
of contempt on the little tumbling darkies who had never entertained it.
Ever since she was born, however, she had frequently fancied she would
like the liberty of rambling that the little wild creatures of the wood
possess, but had felt criminal in the desire, and recently she had found
herself enjoying the immunity of the mocking-bird on the bough, and was
nearly as free in her going and coming as the same bird on the wing.

During the weeks that followed this conversation Flor's dances flagged.
They existed, to be sure, but with an angularity that made them seem
solutions of problems, rather than expressions of emotion; they were
merely mechanical, for she had lost all interest in them. They became at
last so listless as to exhibit, to more serious eyes, signs of grace in
the girl. Flor wondered, if Zoe had spoken the truth, that nothing
appeared changed on the plantation: all their own masters, why so
obsequious to the driver still? This was one of the last of the great
places; behind it, the small farms, with few hands, ran up the
mountains; why was there no stampede of these unguarded slaves? She
hardly understood. She listened outside the circle of the fire on the
ground at night, where two or three old women mumbled together; she
inferred, that, though no one of them would desert Mas'r Henry, they
enjoyed the knowledge that they were at liberty to do so, if they
wished. Flor laughed a bit at this, thinking where the poor things could
possibly go, and how they could get there, if they would; but in her
heart of hearts--though all the world but this one spot was a barren
wilderness, and she never could desire to leave her dear Miss Emma, nor
could find happiness away from her--it seemed a very pleasant thing to
think that her devotion might be a voluntary affair, and she stayed
because she chose. Still she was skeptical. The