rks, "don't that show she's
a limb? We'll have fine works with her, I reckon. I hate these nigger
young uns! so disgusting! I wonder that Mas'r would buy her!"

The "young un" alluded to heard all these comments with the subdued and
doleful air which seemed habitual to her, only scanning, with a keen and
furtive glance of her flickering eyes, the ornaments which Jane wore in
her ears. When arrayed at last in a suit of decent and whole
clothing, her hair cropped short to her head, Miss Ophelia, with some
satisfaction, said she looked more Christian-like than she did, and in
her own mind began to mature some plans for her instruction.

Sitting down before her, she began to question her.

"How old are you, Topsy?"

"Dun no, Missis," said the image, with a grin that showed all her teeth.

"Don't know how old you are? Didn't anybody ever tell you? Who was your
mother?"

"Never had none!" said the child, with another grin.

"Never had any mother? What do you mean? Where were you born?"

"Never was born!" persisted Topsy, with another grin, that looked so
goblin-like, that, if Miss Ophelia had been at all nervous, she might
have fancied that she had got hold of some sooty gnome from the land
of Diablerie; but Miss Ophelia was not nervous, but plain and
business-like, and she said, with some sternness,

"You mustn't answer me in that way, child; I'm not playing with you.
Tell me where you were born, and who your father and mother were."

"Never was born," reiterated the creature, more emphatically; "never had
no father nor mother, nor nothin'. I was raised by a speculator, with
lots of others. Old Aunt Sue used to take car on us."

The child was evidently sincere, and Jane, breaking into a short laugh,
said,

"Laws, Missis, there's heaps of 'em. Speculators buys 'em up cheap, when
they's little, and gets 'em raised for market."

"How long have you lived with your master and mistress?"

"Dun no, Missis."

"Is it a year, or more, or less?"

"Dun no, Missis."

"Laws, Missis, those low negroes,--they can't tell; they don't know
anything about time," said Jane; "they don't know what a year is; they
don't know their own ages.

"Have you ever heard anything about God, Topsy?"

The child looked bewildered, but grinned as usual.

"Do you know who made you?"

"Nobody, as I knows on," said the child, with a short laugh.

The idea appeared to amuse her considerably; for her eyes twinkled, and
she added,

"I sp