man and surely, if
you'll pardon me, your broad acres can yield sufficient to fit her for
the high position she'll be called to occupy."

"She's but a girl, all I have. She's like her dead mother and I--I
can't let her go."

"But think what her mother would wish. Go over with her."

"I can't leave the estate. The slaves are only to be depended on when
they have a capable overseer. Mine is not altogether trustworthy."

"Excuse me but I don't think it right for her to associate with
servants and people like the Allisons. By the way, who are these
Allisons? When riding this afternoon we met the boy and child, and
Lisbeth made much of them. Surely they are not of our class."

"Allison is a Scotchman. I happened to be at Norfolk when he landed
from the old country. The captain told me the fellow had been brought
on board unconscious and with a bad wound in his head. I liked the
man's face, and asked no questions. He never spoke of the matter. I
paid the cost of his passage and let him work it out. He's a good
accountant."

"An objectionable person, probably an escaped convict," remarked
Mogridge with the air of a judge.

"On the contrary he seems a most respectable man. To be sure he's a
Dissenter, but one has to expect that. I've always found him
trustworthy. He has taught a field school for years and the children
make good progress under his instruction."

"You can't mean that you allow Lisbeth to go to such a school?"

"Well, you see," replied the squire as if in excuse, "the school is a
small one, confined to my neighbours' children, otherwise I wouldn't
allow it."

"So she associates with such boys as that Allison."

"He's a fine lad. His mother was a Tawbee, old Squire Tawbee's
daughter. She was a playmate of mine and lived at Greenwood till it
had to be sold, after the squire's death, to pay the debts."

"But you don't know about the father?"

"I said," replied the squire, rather testily, "that he's a decent man
except for his revolutionary notions. He wants to say 'amen' every
time Patrick Henry opens his mouth. That, I have no patience with.
England has helped us fight our foes. This hullabaloo about no
taxation without representation fills the ears of the ignorant. Why,
fifty years ago the chronic growlers opposed the establishment of a
postal service because the government, without consulting the
colonies, charged postage on the letters."

"It seems, however, that you are providing a living for a