The very next day, accordingly, Hester Sommers and her friend sallied forth to present Hugh Sommers with a couple of biscuits!

 

It was arranged that the two girls should carry baskets of fruit on their heads, and that Hester should have the biscuits conveniently in her right hand, so as to be able to drop them into her father’s lap without stopping or even checking her pace as they passed.

 

Of course, Hester was by this time thoroughly alive to the danger of her intended proceedings, both to herself and her father, and was firmly resolved to restrain her feelings. Nevertheless, she could not help trembling when she came in sight of the gang with which her father worked.

 

Sally observed this and grasped her by the arm.

 

“Geo’giana,” she said, “if you gibs way, or speaks, or trembles, or busts up in any way, I grips you by de neck, as I once did before, an’ shobes you along wid scolds and whacks—so you look out!”

 

“Anxiety for my darling father will be a much more powerful restraint, Sally, than your threats,” replied the poor girl.

 

Nevertheless, the threat was not without its effect, for it showed Hester that she must have been on the point of giving way, and impressed on her more than ever the necessity of self-restraint.

 

“W’ich am him? I don’t see him,” said the negress as they advanced.

 

“There he is, don’t you see, just before us,” replied Hester, in a low, hurried voice.

 

“No, I’s growin’ blind, I t’ink.”

 

“There—look! by himself, on the stone. He seems always to sit on the same spot at dinner-time.”

 

“Oh yes, I sees. Now you go on—stiddy. Mind what you’s about!”

 

With a brief prayer for help to control herself, Hester went straight to where her father sat. He was languidly chewing a piece of the regulation black bread at the time, and looked up at her with the vacant indifference born of despair.

 

The desire to fall on his neck and kiss him was, need we say, almost irresistible, but the poor girl had received strength for the duty in hand. She went close to him—even brushed past him—and dropped the biscuits into his lap.

 

At first the poor man was so astonished that he gazed after the retiring figure and made no effort to conceal this unexpected addition to his meal. Fortunately, his wits revived before any of the guards observed him. He slid the biscuits into his shirt bosom with conjurer-like facility, and at the same moment broke off a large bit of one, which he devoured with unwonted satisfaction. The addition did not indeed furnish the unfortunate slave with a full meal, but it at least tended towards that desirable end, and sent him to work with a full heart, because of the assurance that there was in the city, at all events, one human being—and that being, strange to say, a negress!—who pitied him in his forlorn condition.

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