iberty would neither be a credit to them nor a comfort
to her? I cannot think so meanly of them," Vesta reflected. "Besides,
could she have killed my dog?"

"A gross, ignorant, fetich-worshipping negro would kill a dog, or a
child, or anything, when she is possessed with a devil," Mrs. Custis
insisted.

"I don't believe she killed Turk," Roxy remarked, as she left the room.
"There was a white man in the kitchen last Saturday night: I think he
slept there; master gave him leave."

"Yes, missy," Virgie continued, after Roxy had gone to obey her orders;
"he was a dreadful man, and looked at me so coarse and familiar that I
have dreamed of him since. It was the man Mr. Milburn knocked down for
mashing his hat; he was afraid Mr. Milburn would throw him into jail, so
he asked master to hide in the kitchen. But Hominy was almost crazy with
fear of Mr. Milburn before that."

Vesta held up her beautiful arms with a look of despair.

"What has not that poor old hat brought upon every body?" she cried.
"Oh, who dares contest the sunshine with the tailor and hatter? They are
the despots that never will abdicate or die."

"The idea of your father letting a tramp like that sleep in the kitchen
among the slaves!" cried Mrs. Custis. "What obligation had he incurred
there, too, I should like to know? Teackle Hall is become a cave of owls
and foxes; it is time for me to leave it. Here is my husband gone,
riding fifty miles for his worst enemy, leaving us without a cook and
without a man's assistance to discover where ours is gone. I know what I
shall do: I will start this day for Cambridge, to meet my brother, and
visit the Goldsboroughs there till some order is brought out of this
attempt to plant wheat and tares together."

Vesta stopped a moment and kissed her mother: "That is just the thing,
dear mother," she said. "Let me straighten out the difficulties here;
go, and come back when all is done, and you can be yourself again."

"I shall do it, Vesta. Brother Allan gets to Cambridge to-morrow
afternoon; I will go as far as Salisbury this day, and either meet him
on the road to-morrow or find him at Cambridge. Oh, what a house is
Teackle Hall--full of male and female foresters, abolitionists,
runaways, and radicals! All made crazy by the bog ores and the fool's
hat!"

Descending to the yard, Vesta found Turk lying in his blood, his mastiff
jaws and shaggy sides clotted red, and, as it seemed, the howl in which
he died still