scornfully--crumpled the
drawing up in her hand--and threw it into the waste-paper basket.

"You satirical creature!" she burst out gayly. "If you had lived a dull
life at St. Domingo, you would have taken to spoiling paper too. I might
really have turned out an artist, if I had been clever and industrious
like you. As it was, I learned a little drawing--and got tired of it.
I tried modeling in wax--and got tired of it. Who do you think was my
teacher? One of our slaves."

"A slave!" Emily exclaimed.

"Yes--a mulatto, if you wish me to be particular; the daughter of an
English father and a negro mother. In her young time (at least she
said so herself) she was quite a beauty, in her particular style.
Her master's favorite; he educated her himself. Besides drawing
and painting, and modeling in wax, she could sing and play--all the
accomplishments thrown away on a slave! When her owner died, my uncle
bought her at the sale of the property."

A word of natural compassion escaped Emily--to Francine's surprise.

"Oh, my dear, you needn't pity her! Sappho (that was her name) fetched
a high price, even when she was no longer young. She came to us, by
inheritance, with the estates and the rest of it; and took a fancy to
me, when she found out I didn't get on well with my father and mother.
'I owe it to _my_ father and mother,' she used to say, 'that I am a
slave. When I see affectionate daughters, it wrings my heart.' Sappho
was a strange compound. A woman with a white side to her character, and
a black side. For weeks together, she would be a civilized being. Then
she used to relapse, and become as complete a negress as her mother.
At the risk of her life she stole away, on those occasions, into
the interior of the island, and looked on, in hiding, at the horrid
witchcrafts and idolatries of the blacks; they would have murdered a
half-blood, prying into their ceremonies, if they had discovered her.
I followed her once, so far as I dared. The frightful yellings and
drummings in the darkness of the forests frightened me. The blacks
suspected her, and it came to my ears. I gave her the warning that saved
her life (I don't know what I should have done without Sappho to amuse
me!); and, from that time, I do believe the curious creature loved me.
You see I can speak generously even of a slave!"

"I wonder you didn't bring her with you to England," Emily said.

"In the first place," Francine answered, "she was my father's prop