against an article of
dress are as heathen in character as her fetish superstition."

"If he is a good man to you, Miss Vessy," the slave girl said, "I'll
think the Bad Man hasn't got anything to do with him. If he treats you
bad, I'll think the Bad Man has."

"Sometimes I feel as if men ought to have been left wild, like the
animals," the Judge said, rinsing out Milburn's mouth with a piece of
ice, "for the obstacles to liberty raised by fashion and civilization
are Asiatic in their despotism. Think of the taxes we pay to fashion
when we refused less to kings. Think of the aristocracy based upon
dress, after we have formally extirpated it by statute! Think of the
influence the boot-makers and mantua-makers of Europe, proceeding from
the courts we have renounced, exert upon our Presidents and Senators,
and, through the women of this country, upon all the men in the land! A
million women who do not know that there are two houses of Congress,
know just what bonnet the Duchess d'Angouleme is wearing, and how
Charles X. in Paris ties his cravat. So the devil always gets a worm in
every apple. The French Revolution abolished feudality, titles, great
landed property, and only omitted to abolish fashion, and that worm--a
silkworm it is--is devastating republican government everywhere, using
the women to infect us."

"Yet, in the nature of woman," said Vesta, "is the love of dress as
strongly as the love of woman is in man. Some righteous purpose is in
it, papa,--to ornament ourselves like the birds, and let art be born."

"God knows his own mysteries," Judge Custis said. "But Vesta, go home
with me to your own comfortable home, and let Virgie stay here to keep
watch."

"Master, I'm afraid to stay here," the girl exclaimed, sidling towards
her young mistress.

"Then I will stay, and be nurse," the Judge said. "Fear not! I will give
him only wholesome medicine, whatever poison he has given me and mine.
You stay in Teackle Hall, my precious child! Indeed, I must command it."

Vesta smiled sadly and pointed to her husband.

"He commands me now, papa. You were too indulgent a master, and spoiled
me. No, Virgie and I will both remain, and you conciliate mamma. All is
going well. Really, I am happy and grateful to my Heavenly Father that
he is smoothing the way so gently, that I thought would be so hard."

"Oh, the conditions of this disease are repulsive, my child. You are a
lady."

"No, I am a woman," said Vesta; "that