Although known by various titles on the plantation, objurgatory among the hands, facetious among the heads, such as Dancing Devil, Spinning Jenny, Tarantella, Herodias's Daughter,--which last, simplifying itself into Salome, became in its diminutives the most prevalent,--the creature had a name of her own, the softest of syllables. Black and uncouth as she was, a word, one of those the whitest and most beautiful, named her; and since they tell us that every appellation has its significance for the wearer, we must suppose that somewhere in her soul that white and blossoming thing was to be found which answered to the name of Flor. She possessed a kind of freehold in the cabin of an old negress yclept Zoe; but she seldom claimed it, for Zoe was outspoken; she preferred, instead, to lie down by night on a mat in Miss Emma's room, in a corner of the staircase, on the hall-floor, oftenest fallen wherever sleep happened to overtake her;--having so many places in which to lay her head was very like having none at all. She was at the bidding of every one, but seldom received a heavy blow; as for a round of angry words, she liked nothing better. She fell heir to much flimsy finery, as a matter of course, and to many a tidbit, cake or sweetmeat; she made herself gaudy as a butterfly with the one, and never went into a corner with the other. Of late, however, the finery and the delicates had become more uncommon things: Miss Emma wore a homespun gingham, her muslins, and Miss Agatha's, draped the windows,--for curtains and carpets had all gone to camp; bacon had ceased to be given out to the hands, who lived now on corn-meal and yams; the people at the house were scarcely better off,--for, though, as no army had passed that way, the chickens still peopled the place, they were reserved for special occasions, and it was only at rare intervals that one indulged at table in the luxury of a fowl. This was no serious regret to Flor on her own account: the less viands, the less dishes, she could oftener pause in the act of wiping a plate and perform an original hornpipe by herself, tossing the thin translucent china, and rapping it with her knuckles till it rang again. She had, however, a pang once when she saw Miss Emma lunching with relish on cold sweet potato. She spent all the rest of the day floating on the tide in an old abandoned scow secured by a long rope to the bank, and afterwards wading up and down the bed of a brook that ran into the river, until, having left a portion of her provision, to be sure, at Aunt Zoe's cabin, she busied herself over a fire out-of-doors, and served up at last before Miss Emma as savory a little terrapin stew as ever simmered on coals, capering over her success, and standing on her head in the midst of all her scattered embers, afterwards, with pure delight. The next day she came in at noon from the woods, a mile down the river-bank, with her own dark lips cased