"She's no common darky, that Sidney," said aunt. "She'll keep you busy
answering questions, my dear, and I say now, you may tell her anything
she wants to know; we give you perfect liberty; and you may be just as
free with Hester; that's her mother; or with her father, Silas."

"We draw the line at Mingo," said uncle.

"And who is Mingo?" I inquired.

"Mingo? he's her brother; a very low and trailing branch of the family
tree."

As we neared the house I was told more of the father and mother; their
sweet content, their piety, their diligence. "If we lived in town,
where there's better chance to pick up small earnings," remarked uncle,
"those two and Sidney would have bought their freedom by now, and
Mingo's too. Silas has got nearly enough to buy his own, as it is."

Silas, my aunt explained, was a carpenter. "He hands your uncle so
much a week; all he can make beyond that he's allowed to keep." The
carriage stopped at the door; half a dozen servants came, smiling, and
I knew Sidney and Hester at a glance, they were so finely different
from their fellows.

That night the daughter and I made acquaintance. She was eighteen,
tall, lithe and as straight as an arrow. She had not one of the
physical traits that so often make her race uncomely to our eyes; even
her nose was good; her very feet were well made, her hands were slim
and shapely, the fingers long and neatly jointed, and there was nothing