“I suppose my father taught me. He taught me everything I know. I remember that whenever I was naughty, he would look at me over his spectacles and make me ever so sorry. You see even if I knew I had done wrong I didn’t think much about it, till father looked at me. After that I would think about it all day and all night, and be, oh, so sorry! Then I would try not to displease my father again.” “Your father must have been a very wise as well as a very good man!” “He was,” and two tears slipped from the girl’s eyes as she recalled the father who had been everything to her from her very infancy. “That is why I always try, now that he is gone, never to do anything that he would have disliked. I always think ‘I won’t do that, for if I do father will look at me.’ You see I must be a great deal more careful than other girls.” “Why? I see no reason for that.” “That’s because you don’t know about--about things. I was born bad, and if I’m not more careful than other girls have to be, I shall be very bad when I grow up.” “Will you forgive me if I say I don’t believe that?” asked Arthur. “Oh, but it’s true,” answered the girl, looking him straight in the face, with an expression of astonishment at his incredulity. Arthur saw fit to change the conversation. So he returned to Ben’s case. “Most women would have sent Ben to the overseer for punishment, wouldn’t they?” “Some would, but I never find that necessary. Besides I hate _your_ overseer.” “Why? What has he done to incur your displeasure, Miss Dorothy?” “Now you’re mocking me for minding things that are none of my business,” said the girl with a touch of contrition in her voice. “Indeed I am not,” answered the young man with earnestness. “And you have not been doing anything of the kind. I asked you to tell me about things here at Wyanoke, because it is necessary that I should know them. So when you tell me that you hate the overseer here, I want to know why. It is very necessary for me to know what sort of man he is, so that I may govern myself accordingly. I have great confidence in your judgment, young as you are. I am very sure you would not hate the overseer without good cause. So you will do me a favor if you’ll tell me why you hate him.” “It is because he is cruel and a coward.” “How do you know that?” “I’ve seen it for myself. He strikes the field hands for nothing. He has even cruelly whipped some of the women servants with the black snake whip he carries. I told him only a little while ago that if I ever caught him doing that again, I’d set my dogs on him. No Virginia gentleman would permit such a thing. Uncle Robert--that’s the name I always called your uncle by--would have shot the fellow for that, I think.” “But why did Uncle Robert employ such a man for overseer?”