her mind to it. Tom'll have another wife, in a year or two; and she had
better take up with somebody else."

"Mr. Shelby, I have taught my people that their marriages are as sacred
as ours. I never could think of giving Chloe such advice."

"It's a pity, wife, that you have burdened them with a morality above
their condition and prospects. I always thought so."

"It's only the morality of the Bible, Mr. Shelby."

"Well, well, Emily, I don't pretend to interfere with your religious
notions; only they seem extremely unfitted for people in that
condition."

"They are, indeed," said Mrs. Shelby, "and that is why, from my soul,
I hate the whole thing. I tell you, my dear, _I_ cannot absolve myself
from the promises I make to these helpless creatures. If I can get the
money no other way I will take music-scholars;--I could get enough, I
know, and earn the money myself."

"You wouldn't degrade yourself that way, Emily? I never could consent to
it."

"Degrade! would it degrade me as much as to break my faith with the
helpless? No, indeed!"

"Well, you are always heroic and transcendental," said Mr. Shelby,
"but I think you had better think before you undertake such a piece of
Quixotism."

Here the conversation was interrupted by the appearance of Aunt Chloe,
at the end of the verandah.

"If you please, Missis," said she.

"Well, Chloe, what is it?" said her mistress, rising, and going to the
end of the balcony.

"If Missis would come and look at dis yer lot o' poetry."

Chloe had a particular fancy for calling poultry poetry,--an application
of language in which she always persisted, notwithstanding frequent
corrections and advisings from the young members of the family.

"La sakes!" she would say, "I can't see; one jis good as turry,--poetry
suthin good, any how;" and so poetry Chloe continued to call it.

Mrs. Shelby smiled as she saw a prostrate lot of chickens and ducks,
over which Chloe stood, with a very grave face of consideration.

"I'm a thinkin whether Missis would be a havin a chicken pie o' dese
yer."

"Really, Aunt Chloe, I don't much care;--serve them any way you like."

Chloe stood handling them over abstractedly; it was quite evident that
the chickens were not what she was thinking of. At last, with the short
laugh with which her tribe often introduce a doubtful proposal, she
said,

"Laws me, Missis! what should Mas'r and Missis be a troublin theirselves
'bout de money, and not a usin