"A fine shift. Well, I'll attend to your honor and mine, too. I am doing this to save my sister and the honor will come in my giving him an opportunity to defend himself." "Don't you think you'd better speak to Old Master?" "No," he snapped. And then he added: "Will you do as I bid you?" "I am your property, Mars. Bob?" "Rascal, you disarm me. Listen to me a moment. Has a father ever taken more care of a son's education than I have of yours? Compare your condition with that of every other slave in Kentucky, and then form an estimate of my treatment of you." "Mars. Bob, I don't have to compare; I already know, and I appreciate. So far as I am concerned, I don't care--I would crawl after the doctor and listen to all he says, but I am afraid that after a while you may think less of yourself for sending me." "Very thoughtful, I'm sure; but you need have no such fear. I am making a bright justice of a black necessity, and if there should be any repentance, I shall be the one to repent. Will you do as I tell you?" "Yes, sir." He took my hand, something he rarely did, for although sociable, familiarity was by him held in quiet abhorrence. I went straightway to the house, leaving him in the stable, and as best I could, entered upon the discharge of my distasteful duty. I heard the doctor's voice in the library, and I was hanging about the door opening out into the large hall, when Old Miss spied me. "What are you doing here?" she asked, coming forward with one hand resting upon her great bunch of keys. "I am waiting for my Young Master," I replied. "He said that he would meet me here." "But you can be better employed than by standing round here. Take out that library rug and beat it." I ventured to remind her that the Christmas was not quite over and that all work was by custom supposed to be suspended. At this impudence, she lifted her keys and I know that she would have struck me had I not hastened to obey her order. While I was folding the rug, making more than necessary work of it that I might listen to the Doctor and Miss May, I saw him step back from a window, where the two had been standing, and then I heard him say to her: "I am going to town, but will be back this evening," and then in a still lower tone, he added: "And may I have the promise of a talk in the parlor with you to-night? I have something that I wish to tell you."