One day, about a week after Hasty was taken sick, her mistress entered her room.  This lady was the widow of a Frenchman, one of the early settlers of St. Louis, who had, by persevering industry, gained a competency.  Before he had an opportunity of enjoying it he died, and left his property, consisting of a dwelling, five or six negroes, and a good sum in the stocks, to his widow.  Mrs. Le Rue, on breaking up housekeeping, allowed Hasty to hire her time for two dollars a week, on condition that at the end of each month the required sum was to be forthcoming, and in the event of failure, the revocation of the permission was to be the inevitable consequence.

The monthly pay-day found Hasty prostrated on a bed of sickness, and of course it passed without the payment of the stipulated sum.  This was the immediate cause of her visit.

The anxiety depicted in the countenance of Mrs. Le Rue did not arise from any sympathy for the emaciated and suffering woman before her, but only from that natural vexation with which a farmer would regard the sudden falling lame of a valuable horse.  The idea of commiserating Hasty’s condition as a human being, as a sister, never for a moment occurred to her; indeed, the sickness of the little poodle dog, which she led by a pink ribbon, would have elicited far more of the sympathies of her nature.  In Hasty she saw only a piece of property visibly depreciated by sickness.

“What is the matter with you, girl?  Why have you not come to pay me my money?” she asked harshly, as she took the seat that Fanny had carefully dusted off.

“O missus!  I’se been too sick to work dis two weeks; but I’se got five dollars saved up for you, and if ever I get well I kin pay you the rest soon.”

“Pay the rest soon!  Yes, you look very much like that.  You are just making a fool of yourself about your husband; that is the way you niggers do.  You are just trying to cheat me out of the money.  I’ll never let one of my women get married again.”

While the much-injured lady was delivering this speech, the poodle, who had been intently watching the face of his mistress, and thinking some one must be the offender, sprang at Fanny, viciously snapping at her feet.  She, poor girl, had watched every expression in the face of her mistress, with the same anxiety as the courtiers of the sultan watch that autocrat, who holds their lives and fortunes in his hand; and surprised at this assault from an unlooked-for quarter, she jumped aside, and in doing so trod upon the paw of her tormentor, and sent him howling to the lap of his mistress.

This was the last drop that caused the cup of wrath to overflow.  Without heeding the protestations of Fanny, she seized her by the arm, and boxed her ears soundly.

“What did you tread upon the dog for, you great clumsy nigger?  I’ll teach you what I’ll do, if you do anything of the kind again; I’ll give you a good whipping.”