“Yes, don’t I? But, you see, I thought somehow that Dorothy had no relatives; but if she had one who was wealthy, and who allowed her to slave at sewing, then I say he was wicked, dead or alive, so there!” “When work is paid for it is not slavery,” commented Sabina with severity and justice. The sewing girl looked up at her. “My grandfather, in Virginia, owned slaves before the war, and I have often thought that any curse which may have been attached to slavery has at least partly been expiated by me, as foreshadowed in the Bible, where it says that the sins of the fathers shall affect the third or fourth generations. I was thinking of that when I spoke of the shackles falling from my wrists, for sometimes, Miss Kempt, you have made me doubt whether wages and slavery are as incompatible as you appear to imagine. My father, who was a clergyman, often spoke to me of his father’s slaves, and while he never defended the institution, I think the past in his mind was softened by a glamor that possibly obscured the defects of life on the plantation. But often in depression and loneliness I have thought I would rather have been one of my grandfather’s slaves than endure the life I have been called upon to lead.” “Oh, Dorothy, don’t talk like that, or you’ll make me cry,” pleaded Kate. “Let us be cheerful whatever happens. Tell us about the money. Begin ‘Once upon a time,’ and then everything will be all right. No matter how harrowing such a story begins, it always ends with lashin’s and lashin’s of money, or else with a prince in a gorgeous uniform and gold lace, and you get the half of his kingdom. Do go on.” Dorothy looked up at her impatient friend, and a radiant cheerfulness chased away the gathering shadows from her face.