"Now, dar's Lucy,--de aggravatinest, ugliest wench on de place!" pursued
Sambo.

"Take care, Sam; I shall begin to think what's the reason for your spite
agin Lucy."

"Well, Mas'r knows she sot herself up agin Mas'r, and wouldn't have me,
when he telled her to."

"I'd a flogged her into 't," said Legree, spitting, "only there's such a
press o' work, it don't seem wuth a while to upset her jist now. She's
slender; but these yer slender gals will bear half killin' to get their
own way!"

"Wal, Lucy was real aggravatin' and lazy, sulkin' round; wouldn't do
nothin,--and Tom he stuck up for her."

"He did, eh! Wal, then, Tom shall have the pleasure of flogging her.
It'll be a good practice for him, and he won't put it on to the gal like
you devils, neither."

"Ho, ho! haw! haw! haw!" laughed both the sooty wretches; and the
diabolical sounds seemed, in truth, a not unapt expression of the
fiendish character which Legree gave them.

"Wal, but, Mas'r, Tom and Misse Cassy, and dey among 'em, filled Lucy's
basket. I ruther guess der weight 's in it, Mas'r!"

"_I do the weighing!_" said Legree, emphatically.

Both the drivers again laughed their diabolical laugh.

"So!" he added, "Misse Cassy did her day's work."

"She picks like de debil and all his angels!"

"She's got 'em all in her, I believe!" said Legree; and, growling a
brutal oath, he proceeded to the weighing-room.

Slowly the weary, dispirited creatures, wound their way into the room,
and, with crouching reluctance, presented their baskets to be weighed.

Legree noted on a slate, on the side of which was pasted a list of
names, the amount.

Tom's basket was weighed and approved; and he looked, with an anxious
glance, for the success of the woman he had befriended.

Tottering with weakness, she came forward, and delivered her basket. It
was of full weight, as Legree well perceived; but, affecting anger, he
said,

"What, you lazy beast! short again! stand aside, you'll catch it, pretty
soon!"

The woman gave a groan of utter despair, and sat down on a board.

The person who had been called Misse Cassy now came forward, and, with
a haughty, negligent air, delivered her basket. As she delivered it,
Legree looked in her eyes with a sneering yet inquiring glance.

She fixed her black eyes steadily on him, her lips moved slightly, and
she said something in French. What it was, no one knew; but Legree's
face became perfectly demoniacal in its express