Page:A Study in Colour - Augusta Zelia Fraser.pdf/30

Rh months in this unsatisfactory abode it is not necessary to inquire. For the Missus it was perhaps less hard than for most people. No management, however defective, could take away one tint of orange from the glowing sunsets. No ill-cooked stew or muddy coffee could rob the glorious mountains of their jewelled peaks. If the negro servants were lazy, they were also eminently picturesque. The Missus heard of their faults on every side, and with much truth, but she found them also, to her own knowledge, affectionate as children, and almost as spontaneous in their conduct. If they were not trusted, they stole—stole, too, with a frank-hearted enjoyment of their cleverness, that almost robbed the crime of its guilt.

If they were scolded, they lied boldly and deliberately, but only because, as they explained, "dey no liked to be 'roughed' or 'cursed.'"

Morals, as generally understood at home, were of the slightest, yet in their irregular domestic arrangements they were often most strangely and touchingly true to each other.

In all, poor black children, a queer compound of infantine vanity and pathetic humility, ready to do