The dowager was plainly distressed at the direction of the conversation, for the shock to Mrs. McVeigh was so very apparent, and as her hostess remembered that slavery was threatening to become an institution of uncompromising discord across the water, all reference to it was likely to be unwelcome. She pressed the fingers of the Marquise warningly, and the Marquise smiled up at her, but evidently did not understand. "Can such a thing be possible?" asked Mrs. McVeigh, incredulously; "in that case I shall think twice before I send _my_ daughter here to school, as I had half intended--and you remained in such an establishment?" "I had no choice; my guardians decided those questions." "And the faculty--they allowed it?" "They did not know it. She was represented as being the daughter of an American planter; which was true. I have reason to believe that my friend was her only confidant." "And for what purpose was she educated in such an establishment?" "That she might gain accomplishments enhancing her value as companion to the man who was to own her." "Madame!" "Marquise!" The two exclamations betrayed how intent her listeners were, and how full of horror the suggestion. There was even incredulity in the tones, an initiative protest against such possibilities. But the Marquise looked from one to the other with unruffled earnestness. "So it was told to me," she continued; "these accomplishments meant extra thousands to the man who sold her, and the man was her father's brother." "No, no, no!" and Mrs. McVeigh shook her head decidedly to emphasize her conviction. "I cannot believe that at the present day in our country such an arrangement could exist. No one, knowing our men, could credit such a story. In the past century such abuses might have existed, but surely not now--in all my life I have heard of nothing like that." "Probably the girl was romancing," agreed the Marquise, with a shrug, "for you would no doubt be aware if such a state of affairs had existence." "Certainly." "Then your men are not so clever as ours," laughed the Countess; "for they manage many little affairs their own women never suspect." Mrs. McVeigh looked displeased. To her it was not a matter of cleverness, but of principle and morality; and in her mind there was absolutely no comparison possible without jarring decidedly on the prejudices of her Gallic friends, so she let the remark pass without comment. "Yes," said the Marquise, rising, "when I heard the story of the girl Rhoda I fancied it one the white mistresses of America seldom heard." "Rhoda?" "Yes, that was the name the girl was known by in the school--Rhoda Larue--the Larue was a fiction; slaves, I am told, having no legal right to names." "Heavens! What horrors you fancy! Pray give us some music child, and drive away the gloomy pictures you have suggested." "An easy penance;" and the Marquise moved smilingly towards the alcove.