Mrs. Custis.

"I know you did not, girls," Vesta said, "you have too much intelligence
and principle, I am sure; nor could Hominy have been so inhuman to my
poor dog."

Vesta at once rose up and threw on her morning-gown.

"The first thing to be done is to have breakfast. Roxy, do you go at
once to Mr. Milburn's and bring his man Samson here, and awake Miss
Holland to take Samson's place by her uncle. Tell Samson to make the
fire, and you and he get the breakfast. No person is to speak of this
incident of the kitchen servants leaving us on any pretence."

"Won't you give the alarm the first thing?" cried Mrs. Custis, not very
well pleased to see Vesta keep her temper. "They may be overtaken before
they get far away, daughter. Those four negroes are worth twelve hundred
dollars!"

"They are not worth one dollar, mamma, if they have run away from us;
because I should never either sell them or keep them again if they had
behaved so treacherously."

"I say, sell them and get the money," Mrs. Custis cried; "are they not
ours?"

"No, mamma, they are mine. Mr. Milburn and papa are to be consulted
before any steps are taken. Papa deeded them to me only last Saturday;
why should they have deserted at the moment I had redeemed them? Virgie,
can you guess?"

Virgie hesitated, only a moment.

"Miss Vesty, I think I can see what made Hominy go. She was afraid of
Meshach Milburn and his queer hat. She believed the devil give it to
him. She thought he had bought her by marrying you, and was going to
christen her to the Bad Man, or do something dreadful with her and the
little children."

"That's it, Miss Vessy," plump little Roxy added. "Hominy loved the
little children dearly; she thought they was to become Meshach's, and
she must save them."

"Poor, superstitious creature!" Vesta exclaimed.

"More misery brought about by that fool's hat!" cried Mrs. Custis. "If I
ever lay hands on it, it shall end in the fire."

"No wonder," Vesta said, "that this poor, ignorant woman should do
herself such an injury on account of an article of dress that disturbs
liberal and enlightened minds! Now I recollect that Hominy said
something about having 'got Quaker.' What did it mean?"

The two slave girls looked at each other significantly, and Virgie
answered,

"Don't the Quakers help slaves to get off to a free state? Maybe she
meant that."

"Do you suppose the abolitionists would tamper with a poor old woman
like that, whose l