Daisy hesitated, and then said in a whisper: 

“No, mamma—­not that.”

“Think before you answer me, for I shall not ask twice.  Will you promise to sing the gypsy song, because I command you, next Sunday in the evening?  Answer, Daisy.”

Very low it was, for Daisy trembled so that she did not know how she could speak at all, but the answer came,—­

“I can’t, mamma.”

Mrs. Randolph stepped to the bell and rang it.  Almost at the same instant June entered, bearing a cup in her hand.

“What is that?” said Mrs. Randolph.

“Master sent Miss Daisy some medicine.”

“Set it down.  I have got some here better for her.  June, take Daisy’s hands.”

“Oh mamma, no!” exclaimed Daisy.  “Oh please send June away!”

The slight gesture of command to June which answered this, was as imperious as it was slight.  It was characteristically like Mrs. Randolph; graceful and absolute.  June obeyed it, as old instinct told her to do; though sorely against her will.  She had held hands before, though not Daisy’s; and she knew very well the look of the little whip with which her mistress stepped back into the room, having gone to her own for it.  In a Southern home that whip had been wont to live in Mrs. Randolph’s pocket.  June’s heart groaned within her.

The whip was small but it had been made for use, not for play; and there was no play in Mrs. Randolph’s use of it.  This was not like her father’s ferule, which Daisy could bear in silence, if tears would come; her mother’s handling forced cries from her; though smothered and kept under in a way that shewed the child’s self-command.

“What have you to say to me?” Mrs. Randolph responded, without waiting for the answer.  But Daisy had none to give.  At length her mother paused.

“Will you do what I bid you?”

Daisy was unable to speak for tears—­and perhaps for fear.  The wrinkles on June’s brow were strangely folded together with agitation; but nobody saw them.

“Will you sing for me next Sunday?” repeated Mrs. Randolph.

There was a struggle in the child’s heart, as great almost as a child’s heart can bear.  The answer came, when it came, tremblingly—­

“I can’t, mamma.”

“You cannot?” said Mrs. Randolph.

“I can’t, mamma.”

The chastisement which followed was so severe, that June was moved out of all the habits of her life, to interfere in another’s cause.  The white skinned race were no mark for trouble in June’s mind; least of them all, her little charge.  And if white skin was no more delicate in reality than dark skin, it answered to the lash much more speakingly.

“Missus, you’ll kill her!” June said, using in her agitation a carefully disused form of speech; for June was a freedwoman.  A slight turn of the whip brought the lash sharply across her wrist, with the equally sharp words, “Mind your own business!”