Now, why, I ask, have they not as much right to remain here as we have? This is their birthplace as well as ours. We are, likewise, descendants of foreigners. If we drive them hence, what excuse have we for it? Our forefathers were not the aborigines of this country. As well might the native red men say to us: "Fly, leave the Western continent, 'tis our home; we will not let you stay here. You have cultivated it, now _we_ will enjoy it. Go and labor elsewhere." What would we think of this? Yet such is our line of conduct toward those poor creatures, who have toiled to adorn our homes. Then again, we allow the Irish, Germans, and Hungarians, to dwell among us. Why ban the African?" "These, my young friend, are questions that have puzzled the wisest brains." "If it entered more into the hearts, and disturbed the brains less, it would be better for them and for the slaves." "Now, come, Miss Emily, I'm tired of hearing you and that boy talk all that nonsense. It's time you were both thinking of something else. You are too old to be indulgin' of him in that ar' stuff. It will never come to any good. Them ar' niggers is allers gwine to be slaves, and white folks had better be tendin' to what consarns 'emselves." Such arguments as the foregoing were carried on every day. Meanwhile we, who formed the subject of them, still went on in our usual way, half-fed and half-clad, knocked and kicked like dogs. Amy went about her assigned work, with the same hard-set composure with which she had begun. Talking little to any one, she tried to discharge her duties with a docility and faithfulness very remarkable. Yet she sternly rebuked all conversation. I made many efforts to draw her out into a free, sociable talk, and was always told that it was not agreeable to her. I now had no companionship among those of my own color. Aunt Polly was in the grave; Amy wrapped in the silence of her own grief; and Sally (the successor of Aunt Polly in the culinary department) was a sulky, ignorant woman, who did not like to be sociable; and the men, with their beastly instincts, were objects of aversion to me. So my days and nights passed in even deeper gloom than I had ever before known. CHAPTER XXIII. THE SUPPER--ITS CONSEQUENCES--LOSS OF SILVER--A LONELY NIGHT--AMY.