“Why, missus!” he interposes, his face glowing with astonishment; “Buckra don’t be so smart dat he make old nigger young, be he?”

“Traders can do anything with niggers that have got money in them, as they say.  Our distinguished people are sensitive of the crime, but excuse themselves with apologies they cannot make cover the shame.”

“Franke!” interrupts Marston, “spare the negro’s feelings,—­it may have a bad effect.”  He touches her on the arm, and knits his brows in caution.

“How strange, to think that bad influence could come of such an inoffensive old man!  Truth, I know and feel, is powerfully painful when brought home to the doors of our best people,—­it cuts deep when told in broad letters; but they make the matter worse by attempting to enshrine the stains with their chivalry.  We are a wondrous people, uncle, and the world is just finding it out, to our shame.  We may find it out ourselves, by and by; perhaps pay the penalty with sorrow.  We look upon negroes as if they were dropped down from some unaccountable origin,—­intended to raise the world’s cotton, rice, and sugar, but never to get above the menial sphere we have conditioned for them.  Uncle, there is a mistake somewhere,—­a mistake sadly at variance with our democratic professions.  Democracy needs to reclaim its all-claiming principles of right and justice for the down-trodden.  And yet, while the negro generously submits to serve us, we look upon him as an auspicious innovator, who never could have been born to enjoy manhood, and was subjected to bear a black face because God had marked him for servitude.  Did God found an aristocracy of colour, or make men to be governed by their distinctive qualifications of colour relationship?” says Franconia, her face resuming a flush of agitation.  Touching Marston on the arm with the fore-finger of her right hand, and giving a glance at Bob, who listens attentively to the theme of conversation, she continues:  “Say no more of bad influence coming of slaves, when the corruptest examples are set by those who hold them as such,—­who crash their hopes, blot out their mental faculties, and turn their bodies into licentious merchandise that they may profit by its degradation!  Show me the humblest slave on your plantation, and, in comparison with the slave-dealer, I will prove him a nobleman of God’s kind,—­of God’s image:  his simple nature will be his clean passport into heaven.  The Father of Mercy will receive him there; he will forgive the crimes enforced upon him by man; and that dark body on earth will be recompensed in a world of light,—­it will shine with the brighter spirits of that realm of justice and love.  Earth may bring the slavetrader bounties; but heaven will reject the foul offering.”  The good woman unfolds the tender emotions of her heart, as only woman can.

Bob listens, as if taking a deep interest in the force and earnestness of young missus’s language.  He is swayed by her pathos, and at length interposes his word.