s no end o' de mean ways o' sich folks. Know he ain't no
gentleman, nohow!"

"What does he do, Maria?" I said, trembling, yet unable to keep back
the question.

"He can do what he please, Miss Daisy," Maria said, in the same grave
way. "'Cept de Lord above, dere no one can hinder--now massa so fur.
Bes' pray de Lord, and mebbe He sen' His angel, some time."

Maria's fish was ready for the kettle; some of the other servants came
in, and I went with a heavy heart up the stairs. "Massa so fur"--yes!
I knew that; and Mr. Edwards knew it too. Once sailed for China, and
it would be long, long, before my cry for help, in the shape of one of
my little letters, could reach him and get back the answer. My heart
felt heavy as if I could die, while I slowly mounted the stairs to my
room. It was not only that trouble was brought upon my poor friends,
nor even that their short enjoyment of the word of life was hindered
and interrupted; above this and worse than this was the sense of
_wrong_ done to these helpless people, and done by my own father and
mother. This sense was something too bitter for a child of my years to
bear; it crushed me for a time. Our people had a right to the Bible as
great as mine; a right to dispose of themselves as true as my father's
right to dispose of himself. Christ, my Lord, had died for them as
well as for me; and here was my father--_my father_--practically
saying that they should not hear of it, nor know the message He had
sent to them. And if anything could have made this more bitter to me,
it was the consciousness that the _reason_ of it all was that we might
profit by it. Those unpaid hands wrought that our hands might be free
to do nothing; those empty cabins were bare, in order that our houses
might be full of every soft luxury; those unlettered minds were kept
unlettered that the rarest of intellectual wealth might be poured into
our treasury. I knew it. For I had written to my father once to beg
his leave to establish schools, where the people on the plantation
might be taught to read and write. He had sent a very kind answer,
saying it was just like his little Daisy to wish such a thing, and
that his wish was not against it, if it could be done; but that the
laws of the State, and for wise reasons, forbade it. Greatly puzzled
by this, I one day carried my puzzle to Preston. He laughed at me as
usual, but at the same time explained that it would not be safe; for
that if the slaves were allow