Page:A hairdresser's experience in high life.djvu/140

142 her. I have known her to receive as a compliment what other ladies would be furious about; and for that reason I would not tell her what folks were saying. I asked her if she had forgotten her promises and conversation while in the East. She said she had made so many she could not remember what; so I told her what her promise was: One morning, while in Boston, we were conversing, and Minnie said she blamed the way in which parents treated their slaves for the conduct of younger members of the family, as the sins of the parents were visited upon the children; and when she went home she would set free a woman and her child who belonged to herself.

I then asked her if she had done so. Her reply was, "No, mamma would not let me." I said, "I thought they were your own property." She replied, "Yes, but on my going home, mamma took all my property out of my hands."

She said she had often laughed at my coaxing her to say her prayers and read her Bible, while in Boston. I asked her if she thought it was a laughing matter, and not a duty; and asked her again, if she said her prayers now. Her reply was, "No; I have not knelt to pray, or opened my Bible since you left me. When my maid passes through the room, I often think of the conversations you and I have had, and say to myself, if she was to go away without leave I would never look after her; for I know, let servants be treated as well as they can be, they want to be free.

A short time after this conversation, sure enough the maid did leave; her husband was in the same