answer, 'That he was reading Susannah and the Elders, for that he had
read Bel and the Dragon till he could pretty near say it off by heart,
and they were two as pretty stories as ever he had read, and that it was
a caution to him what bad old chaps there were in the world.' Now, as
Job is bed-ridden, I don't think he is likely to meet with the Elders,
and I say that I think repeating his Creed, the Commandments, and the
Lord's Prayer, and, maybe, throwing in a verse of the Psalms, if he
wanted a bit of a change, would have done him far more good than his
pretty stories, as he called them. And what's the next thing our young
parson does? Why he tries to make us all feel pitiful for the black
slaves, and leaves little pictures of negroes about, with the question
printed below, 'Am I not a man and a brother?' just as if I was to be
hail-fellow-well-met with every negro footman. They do say he takes no
sugar in his tea, because he thinks he sees spots of blood in it. Now I
call that superstition."

The next day it was a still worse story.

"Well, my dear! and how are you? My lady sent me in to sit a bit with
you, while Mr. Horner looks out some papers for me to copy. Between
ourselves, Mr. Steward Horner does not like having me for a clerk. It is
all very well he does not; for, if he were decently civil to me, I might
want a chaperone, you know, now poor Mrs. Horner is dead." This was one
of Miss Galindo's grim jokes. "As it is, I try to make him forget I'm a
woman, I do everything as ship-shape as a masculine man-clerk. I see he
can't find a fault--writing good, spelling correct, sums all right. And
then he squints up at me with the tail of his eye, and looks glummer than
ever, just because I'm a woman--as if I could help that. I have gone
good lengths to set his mind at ease. I have stuck my pen behind my ear,
I have made him a bow instead of a curtsey, I have whistled--not a tune I