"Roxy," said Jack, "I'm a-goin' to git you free, gal, fur I 'spect
Meshach Milburn will give me a pile o' money fur a-watchin' of the sto'.
Then we'll go to Canaday, whar, I hearn tell, color ain't no pizen, an'
we'll love like the white doves an' the brown, that both makes the same
coo, so happy they is."
"Jack," said the soft-eyed, pitying maid, "you're a pore foolish fellow,
but I like to hear you talk. I reckon there is no harm in you. Virgie is
in love, too, with a white man, but you mustn't breathe it."
"Never," said Jack, making solemn motions with his eyes, and cuddling
closer in dead earnest of sympathy. "Hope I may die! Can't tell, to save
my life! Who-oop! Tell me, Roxy!"
"Pore sister Virgie, she was made to love, and, though it's hopeless, I
think she loves Mr. Tilghman, our minister, because he loved Miss Vesty
once, and Virgie worships Miss Vesty like her sister."
* * * * *
Vesta told the story of Mary, the free woman, to her husband, who
listened closely and said:
"I know of but one thing, my darling, that will make such ignorance and
cruelty fade out in the forests of this peninsula: an iron road. A new
thing, called the railroad-engine, has just been made by an Englishman,
one George Stephenson, and a specimen of it has been sent to New York,
where I have had it examined. The errand your father went to do for me,
he has done well.
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