England?" he said.

Mr. Hopper laughed.

"Tarnation!" said he, "you get used to it. When I came here, I was a sort
of an Abolitionist. But after you've lived here awhile you get to know
that niggers ain't fit for freedom."

Silence from Stephen.

"Likely gal, that beauty," Eliphalet continued unrepressed. "There's a
well-known New Orleans dealer named Jenkins after her. I callate she'll
go down river."

"I reckon you're right, Mistah," a man with a matted beard chimed in, and
added with a wink: "She'll find it pleasant enough--fer a while. Some of
those other niggers will go too, and they'd rather go to hell. They do
treat 'em nefarious down thah on the wholesale plantations. Household
niggers! there ain't none better off than them. But seven years in a
cotton swamp,--seven years it takes, that's all, Mistah."

Stephen moved away. He felt that to stay near the man was to be tempted
to murder. He moved away, and just then the auctioneer yelled,
"Attention!"

"Gentlemen," he cried, "I have heah two sisters, the prope'ty of the late
Mistah Robe't Benbow, of St. Louis, as fine a pair of wenches as was ever
offe'd to the public from these heah steps--"

"Speak for the handsome gal," cried a wag.

"Sell off the cart hoss fust," said another.

The auctioneer turned to the darker sister:

"Sal ain't much on looks, gentlemen," he said, "but she's the best nigger
for work Mistah Benbow had." He seized her arm and squeezed it, while the
girl flinched and drew back. "She's solid, gentlemen, and sound as a
dollar, and she kin sew and cook. Twenty-two years old. What am I bid?"

Much to the auctioneer's disgust, Sal was bought in for four hundred
dollars, the interest in the beautiful sister having made the crowd
impatient. Stephen, sick at heart, turned to leave. Halfway to the corner
he met a little elderly man who was the color of a dried gourd. And just
as Stephen passed him, this man was overtaken by an old negress, with
tears streaming down her face, who seized the threadbare hem of his coat.
Stephen paused involuntarily.

"Well, Nancy," said the little man, "we had marvellous luck. I was able
to buy your daughter for you with less than the amount of your savings."

"T'ank you, Mistah Cantah," wailed the poor woman, "t'ank you, suh.
Praised be de name ob de Lawd. He gib me Sal again. Oh, Mistah Cantah"
(the agony in that cry), "is you gwineter stan' heah an' see her sister
Hester sol' to--to--oh, ma little Chil