Excepting a quivering of her lips, a flushing of her brow, a slight heaving of her bosom, and a momentary expression as of deadly sickness in her face, she did not betray, by outward signs, the intensity of that feeling of disgust, hate, and indignation which Mrs. Gentry’s communication had aroused. “Did Mr. Ratcliff request you to inform me that he considered me his slave?” she asked, in a tone which, by a strenuous effort, she divested of all significance. “Yes; he concluded you are now of an age to understand the responsibilities of your real situation. He not only paid a price for you when you were yet an infant, but he has maintained you ever since. But for him you might have been toiling in the sun on a plantation. But for him you might never have got an education. But for him you might never have heard of salvation through Christ. But for him you might never have had the privilege of attending the Rev. Dr. Palmer’s Sunday school. Is there any sacrifice too great for you to make for such a master? Would it be too much for you to lay down your life for him? Speak!” Mrs. Gentry, it will be seen, pursued the Socratic method of impressing truth upon her pupils. As Clara made no reply to her interrogatories, she continued: “As your instructress, it has been my object to make you feel sensibly the importance of doing your duty in whatever sphere you may be cast.” “And what, madame, may be the duty of a slave?” interposed Clara, stifling down and masking the rage of her heart. “The duty of a slave,” said Mrs. Gentry, “is to obey her master. Prompt and unhesitating obedience, that is her duty.” “Obedience to any and every command,—is that what you mean, madame?” “Unquestionably, it is.” “And must I not exercise my reason as to what is right or wrong?” “Your reason, under slavery, is subordinated to another’s. You must not set up your own reason against your master’s.” “Supposing my master should order me to stab or poison you,—ought I to do it?” The judge’s daughter, like all who venture to vindicate the leprous wrong on moral grounds, found herself nonplussed. “You suppose a ridiculous and improbable case,” she replied. “Well, madame, let me state a fact. One of your pupils had a letter yesterday from a sister in Alabama, who wrote that a slave woman had killed herself under these circumstances: her master had compelled her to unite herself in so-called marriage with a black man, though she fully believed a former husband still lived. To escape the abhorred consequence, she put an end to her life. Was that woman right or wrong in opposing her master’s will?” “How can you ask?” returned Mrs. Gentry, reproachfully. “’T is the slave’s duty to marry as the master orders.” “Even though her husband be living, do I understand you?” “Undoubtedly. Ministers of the Gospel will tell you, if there’s wrong in it, the master, not the slave, is to blame.”[25]