ook care of my room. The first
night I slept at the plantation, it annoyed me to see her kneel down
to take off my stockings and shoes. I told her she might go, for I
could undress myself. She seemed surprised; and I think her conclusion
was that I was no lady. But all the negroes liked me. They had got the
idea, somehow, that Northern people were their friends, and were doing
something to set them free."

"Then they generally wanted their freedom, did they?" inquired Flora.

"To be sure they did," rejoined Mrs. Bright. "Did you ever hear of
anybody that liked being a slave?"

Mrs. King asked whether Mr. Fitzgerald was a hard master.

"I don't think he was," said their hostess. "I have known him to do
very generous and kind things for his servants. But early habits had
made him indolent and selfish, and he left the overseer to do as he
liked. Besides, though he was a pleasant gentleman when sober, he was
violent when he was intoxicated; and he had become much addicted
to intemperance before I went there. They said he had been a very
handsome man; but he was red and bloated when I knew him. He had a
dissipated circle of acquaintances, who used to meet at his house in
Savannah, and gamble with cards till late into the night; and the
liquor they drank often made them very boisterous and quarrelsome.
Mrs. Fitzgerald never made any remark, in my presence, about these
doings; but I am sure they troubled her, for I often heard her walking
her chamber long after she had retired for the night. Indeed, they
made such an uproar, that it was difficult to sleep till they were
gone. Sometimes, after they had broken up, I heard them talking on the
piazza; and their oaths and obscene jests were shocking to hear;
yet if I met any of them the next day, they appeared like courtly
gentlemen. When they were intoxicated, niggers and Abolitionists
seemed always to haunt their imaginations. I remember one night in
particular. I judged by their conversation that they had been reading
in a Northern newspaper some discussion about allowing slaveholders to
partake of the sacrament. Their talk was a strange tipsy jumble. If
Mr. Bright had heard it, he would give you a comical account of it. As
they went stumbling down the steps, some were singing and some were
swearing. I heard one of them bawl out, 'God damn their souls to all
eternity, they're going to exclude us from the communion-table.' When
I first told the story to Mr. Bright, I said d--