haint so much--what
you call him--so much go off to her as Miss Katy had, and she can't
bar his grinding ways. They'll scrush her to onct--see if they
don't. But I knows one thing, this yer nigger 'tends to do his duty,
and hold up them little cheese-curd hands of her'n, jest as some of
them Scripter folks held up Moses with the bulrushes."

"And what of the young one?" asked Hannah, who had been quite
indignant at the thoughts of another child in the family, "what of
the young one?"

"Bright as a dollar!" answered John. "Knows more'n a dozen of
Nellie, and well she might, for she aint half as white, and as
Master Kennedy says, it's a maxim of mine, the blacker the hide the
better the sense!"

By this time Hannah had washed the dough from her hands, and taking
the roast chicken from the oven she donned a clean apron and started
to see the stranger for herself. Although a tolerably good woman,
Hannah's face was not very prepossessing, and Mrs. Kennedy
intuitively felt that 'twould be long before her former domestic's
place was made good by the indolent African. It is true her
obeisance was very low, and her greeting kindly enough, but there
was about her an inquisitive, and at the same time, rather
patronizing air which Mrs. Kennedy did not like, and she was glad
when she at last left the parlor, telling them, as she did so, that
"dinner was done ready."

Notwithstanding that the house itself was so large, the dining room
was a small, dark, cheerless apartment, and though she was beginning
to feel the want of food, Mrs. Kennedy could scarcely force down a
mouthful, for the homesick feeling at her heart; a feeling which
whispered to her that the home to which she had come was not like
that which she had left. Dinner being over, she asked permission to
retire to her chamber, saying she needed rest, and should feel
better after she had slept. Nellie volunteered to lead the way, and
as they left the dining room old Hannah, who was notoriously lazy,
muttered aloud: "A puny, sickly thing. Great help she'll be to me;
but I shan't stay to wait on more'n forty more."

Dr. Kennedy had his own private reason for wishing to conciliate
Hannah. When he set her free he made her believe it was her duty to
work for him for nothing, and though she soon learned better, and
often threatened to leave, he had always managed to keep her, for,
on the whole, she liked her place, and did not care to change it for
one where her task would