pick-basket, there was at that end of the row nearest the ginhouse an
immense basket, nearly as tall as a barrel, and of greater circumference,
with a capacity for three hundred pounds.

Alston's pick-basket stood beside Little Lizay's, and between his row and
hers. She was carrying two rows to his one, and he perceived, without
looking and with a vague envy, that Lizay emptied three sacks at least to
his one. Yet she did not seem to be working half as hard as he was. With
light, graceful movements, now right, now left, she plucked the white tufts
and the candelabra-like pendants stretched by the wind and the expanding
lint till the dark seed could be discerned in clusters.

It was near nine o'clock when Alston emptied his first sack, some fifteen
pounds, in the pick-basket, which Little Lizay had brought forward with her
own. Soon after she went back to empty her sack. The baskets stood
hazardously near Alston for Lizay's game, but with her back turned to him
and the luxuriant cotton-stalks between she reckoned she might venture.
One-third of her sack she threw into Alston's basket--about five pounds.
And thus the poor soul did during the day, giving a third of her gatherings
to Alston. She would have given him more--the half, the whole, everything
she owned--for she regarded him with a feeling that would have been called
love in a fairer woman.

Alston had been in Virginia something of a house-servant, doing occasional
duty as coachman when the regular official was ill or was wanted elsewhere.
He was also a good table-waiter, and had served in the dining-room when
there were guests. So it came that though properly a field-hand, yet in
manner and speech he showed to advantage beside the slaves who were
exclusively field-hands. Little Lizay too occupied a halfway place between
these and the better-spoken, gentler-mannered house-servants. In the