"Fate," thought she, "at this moment indemnifies them for the misfortune
of their birth and for a thousand days of misery, and presently they will
go tired and happy to bed. I could envy these poor creatures! If it
were permissible I would join them and be a child again."

The comic portrait of the overseer was by this time finished, and a
short, stout wench burst into a fit of uproarious and unquenchable
laughter before any of the rest. It came so naturally, too, from the
very depths of her plump little body that Paula, who had certainly not
come hither to be gay, suddenly caught the infection and had to laugh
whether she would or no. Sorrow and anxiety were suddenly forgotten,
thought and calculation were far from her; for some minutes she felt
nothing but that she, too, was laughing heartily, irrepressibly, like the
young healthful human creature that she was. Ah, how good it was thus to
forget herself for once! She did not put this into words, but she felt
it, and she laughed afresh when the girl who had been sitting apart
joined the others, and exclaimed something which was unintelligible to
Paula, but which gave a new impetus to their mirth.

The tall slight form of this maiden was now standing by the fire. Paula
had never seen her before and yet she was by far the handsomest of them
all; but she did not look happy and perhaps was in some pain, for she had
a handkerchief over her head which was tied at the top over the thick
fair hair as though she had the toothache. As she looked at her Paula
recovered herself, and as soon as she began to think merriment was at an
end. The slave-girls were not of this mind; but their laughter was less
innocent and frank than it had been; for it had found an object which
they would have done better to pass by.

The girl with the handkerchief over her head was a slave too, but she had