"What have I done, Miss Jane?" This was asked in a quiet tone, perhaps not so obsequiously as she thought it should be. Thereupon she took great offence. "How dare you, Miss, speak _to me_ in that tone? Take that," and she dealt me a blow across the forehead with a long, limber whalebone, that laid the flesh open. I was so stunned by it that I reeled, and should have fallen to the floor, had I not supported myself by the bed-post. "Don't you dare to scream." I attempted to bind up my brow with a handkerchief. This she regarded as affectation. "Take care, Miss Ann," she often prefixed the Miss when she was mad, by way of taunting me; "give yourself none of those important airs. I'll take you down a little." When Mr. Summerville entered, she began to cry, saying: "Husband, this nigger-wench has given me a great deal of impertinence. Father never allowed it; now I want to know if you will not protect me from such insults." "Certainly, my love, I'll not allow any one, white or black, to insult you. Ann, how dare you give your mistress impudence?" "I did not mean it, Master William." I had thus addressed him ever since his marriage. I attempted to relate the conversation that had occurred, wherein Miss Jane thought I had been impudent, when she suddenly sprang up, exclaiming: "Do you allow a negro to give testimony against your own wife?" "Certainly not." "Now, Mr. Summerville," she was getting angry with him, "I require you to whip that girl severely; if you don't do it--why--" and she ground her teeth fiercely. "I will have her whipped, my dear, but I cannot whip her." "Why can't you?" and the lady's eye flashed. "Because I should be injured by it. _Gentlemen_ do not correct negroes; they hire others to do that sort of business." "Ah, well, then, hire some one who will do it well." "Come with me, Ann," he said to me, as I stood speechless with fear and mortification. Seeing him again motion me to follow, I, forgetful of the injustice that had been done me, and the honest resentment I should feel--forgetful of everything but the humiliation to which they were going to subject me--fell on my knees before Miss Jane, and besought her to excuse, to forgive me, and I would never offend her again. "Don't dare to ask mercy of me. You know that I am too much like father to spare a nigger." Ah, well I knew it! and vainly I sued to her. I might have known that she rejoiced too much in the sport; and, had she been in the country, would have asked no higher pleasure than to attend to it personally. A negro's scream of agony was music to her ears. I governed myself as well as I could while I followed Mr. Summerville through the halls and winding galleries. Down flights of steps, through passages and lobbys we went, until at last we landed in the cellar. There Mr. Summerville surrendered me to the care of a Mr. Monkton, the bar-keeper of the establishment duly appointed and fitted for the office of slave-whipping.