Some weeks afterwards, when I was trying to teach her the doctrine of the immortality of the soul, she broke forth in an idiotic laugh, as she said, "oh, no, dat gold city what dey sings 'bout in hymns, will do fur de white folks; but nothin' eber comes of niggers; dey jist dies and rots." "Who do you think made negroes?" I inquired. Looking up with a meaning grin, she said, "White folks made 'em fur der own use, I 'spect." "Why do you think that?" "Kase white folks ken kill 'em when dey pleases; so I 'spose dey make 'em." This was a species of reasoning which, for a moment, confounded my logic. Seeing that I lacked a ready reply, she went on: "Yes, you see, Ann, we hab no use wid a soul. De white folks won't hab any work to hab done up dere, and so dey won't hab no use fur niggers." "Doesn't this make you miserable?" "What?" she asked, with amazement. "This thought of dying, and rotting like the vilest worm." "No, indeed, it makes me glad; fur den I'll not hab anybody to beat me; knock, kick, and cuff me 'bout, like dey does now." "Poor child, happier far," I thought, "in your ignorance, than I, with all the weight of fearful responsibility that my little knowledge entails upon me. On you, God will look with a more pitying eye than upon me, to whom he has delegated the stewardship of two talents." CHAPTER VIII. TALK AT THE FARM-HOUSE--THREATS--THE NEW BEAU--LINDY. Several days had elapsed since the morning conversation with Amy; meanwhile matters were jogging along in their usually dull way. Of late, since the flight of Mr. Jones, and the illness of Mr. Peterkin, there had been considerably less fighting; but the ladies made innumerable threats of what they would do, when their father should be well enough to allow a suspension of nursing duties. My wounds had rapidly healed, and I had resumed my former position in the discharge of household duties. Lindy, my old assistant, still held her place. I always had an aversion to her. There was that about her entire physique which made her odious to me. A certain laxity of the muscles and joints of her frame, which produced a floundering, shuffling sort of gait that was peculiarly disagreeable, a narrow, soulless countenance, an oblique leer of the eye where an ambushed fiend seemed to lurk, full, voluptuous lips, lengthy chin, and expanded nostril, combined to prove her very low in the scale of animals. She had a kind of dare-devil courage, which seemed to brave a great deal, and yet she shrank from everything like punishment. There was a union of degrading passions in her character. I doubt if the lowest realm of hades contained a baser spirit. This girl, I felt assured from the first time I beheld her, was destined to be my evil genius. I felt that the baleful comet that presided over her birth, would in his reckless and maddening course, rush too near the little star which, through cloud and shadow, beamed on my destiny.