shall have one of them running away next, and that will be a nice
thing on what used to be considered one of the happiest plantations
in Virginia. I can't make mother out; I should have thought that
she would have been the last person in the world to have allowed
the slaves to be harshly treated."

"I am sure we don't like Jonas more than you do, Vincent; but you
see mamma has to depend upon him so much. No, I don't think
she can like it; but you can't have everything you like in a man, and
I know she thinks he is a very good overseer. I suppose she could
get another?"

Vincent said he thought that there could not be much difficulty
about getting an overseer.

"There might be a difficulty in getting one she could rely on so
thoroughly," Rosa said. "You see a great deal must be left to him.
Jonas has been here a good many years now, and she has learned
to trust him. It would be a long time before she had the same
confidence in a stranger; and you may be sure that he would have
his faults, though, perhaps, not the same as those of Jonas. I think
you don't make allowance enough for mamma, Vincent. I quite
agree with you as to Jonas, and I don't think mamma can like his
harshness to the slaves any more than you do; but every one says
what a difficulty it is to get a really trustworthy and capable
overseer, and, of course, it is all the harder when there is no master
to look after him."

"Well, in a few years I shall be able to look after an overseer,"
Vincent said.