"Please, missis, may I be Miss Daisy's girl?"
"I will ask Aunt Gary," I answered, a good deal surprised.
"Miss Daisy is the mistress. We all belong to Miss Daisy. It will be as she say."
I thought to myself that very little was going to be "as I said." I got out of bed, feeling terribly slim-hearted, and stood in my nightgown before the fire, trying to let the blaze warm me. Margaret did her duties with a zeal of devotion that reminded me of my old June.
"I will ask Aunt Gary," I said; "and I think she will let you build my fire, Margaret."
"Thank'e, ma'am. First-rate fires. I'll make, Miss Daisy. We'se all so glad Miss Daisy come to Magnoly."
Were they? I thought, and what did she mean by their all "belonging to me?" I was not accustomed to quite so much deference. However, I improved my opportunity by asking Margaret my question of the day before about church. The girl half laughed.
"Ain't any church big enough to hold all de people," she said. "Guess we coloured folks has to go widout."
"But where is the church?" I said.
"Ain't none, Miss Daisy. People enough to make a church full all himselves."
"And don't you want to go?"
"Reckon it's o' no consequence, missis. It's a right smart chance of a way to Bo'mbroke, where de white folks' church is. Guess they don't have none for poor folks nor niggers in dese parts."
"But Jesus died for poor people," I said, turning round upon my attendant. She met me with a gaze I did not understand, and said nothing. Margaret was not like my old June. She was a clear mulatto, with a fresh colour and rather a handsome face; and her eyes, unlike June's little anxious, restless, almond-shaped eyes, were liquid and full. She went on carefully with the toilet duties which busied her; and I was puzzled.
"Did you never hear of Jesus?" I said presently. "Don't you know that He loves poor people?"
"Reckon He loves rich people de best, Miss Daisy," the girl said, in a dry tone.
I faced about to deny this, and to explain how the Lord had a special love and care for the poor. I saw that my hearer did not believe me. "She had heerd so," she said.
The dressing-bell sounded long and loud, and I was obliged to let Margaret go on with my dressing; but in the midst of my puzzled state of mind, I felt childishly sure of the power of that truth, of the Lord's love, to break down any hardness and overcome any coldness. Yet, "how shall they hear without a preacher?" and I had so little chance to speak.
"Then, Margaret," said I at last, "is there no place where you can go to hear about the things in the Bible?"
"No, missis; I never goes."
"And does not anybody, except Darry when he goes with the carriage?"
"Can't, Miss Daisy; it's miles and miles; and no place for niggers neither."
"Can you read the Bible, Margaret?"
"Guess not, missis; we's too stupid; ain't good for coloured folks to read."
"Does nobody, among all the people, read the Bible?" said I, once more stopping Margaret in my dismay.
"Uncle Darry – he does," said the girl; "and he do 'spoun some; but I don't make no count of his 'spoundations."
I did not know quite what she meant; but I had no time for anything more. I let her go, locked my door and kneeled down; with the burden on my heart of this new revelation; that there were hundreds of people under the care of my father and mother who were living without church and without Bible, in desperate ignorance of everything worth knowing. If papa had only been at Magnolia with me! I thought I could have persuaded him to build a church and let somebody come and teach the people. But now – what could I do? And I asked the Lord, what could I do? but I did not see the answer.
Feeling the question on my two shoulders, I went downstairs. To my astonishment, I found the family all gathered in solemn order; the house servants at one end of the room, my aunt, Miss Pinshon and Preston at the other, and before my aunt a little table with books. I got a seat as soon as I could, for it was plain that something was waiting for me. Then my aunt opened the Bible and read a chapter, and followed it with prayer read out of another book. I was greatly amazed at the whole proceeding. No such ceremony was ever gone through at Melbourne; and certainly nothing had ever given me the notion that my Aunt Gary was any more fond of sacred things than the rest of the family.
"An excellent plan," said Miss Pinshon, when we had risen from our knees and the servants had filed off.
"Yes," my aunt said, somewhat as if it needed an apology; – "it was the custom in my father's and grandfather's time; and we always keep it up. I think old customs always should be kept up."
"And do you have the same sort of thing on Sundays, for the out-of-door hands?"
"What?" said my aunt. It was somewhat more abrupt than polite; but she probably felt that Miss Pinshon was a governess.
"There were only the house servants gathered this morning."
"Of course; part of them."
"Have you any similar system of teaching for those who are outside? I think you told me they have no church to go to."
"I should like to know what 'system' you would adopt," said my aunt, "to reach seven hundred people."
"A church and a minister would not be a bad thing."
"Or we might all turn missionaries," said Preston; "and go among them with bags of Bibles round our necks. We might all turn missionaries."
"Colporteurs," said Miss Pinshon.
Then I said in my heart, "I will be one." But I went on eating my breakfast and did not look at anybody; only I listened with all my might.
"I don't know about that," said my aunt. "I doubt whether a church and a minister would be beneficial."
"Then you have a nation of heathen at your doors," said Miss Pinshon.
"I don't know but they are just as well off," said my aunt. "I doubt if more light would do them any good. They would not understand it."
"They must be very dark if they could not understand light," said my governess.
"Just as people that are very light cannot understand darkness," said Preston.
"I think so," my aunt went on. "Our neighbour Colonel Joram, down below here at Crofts, will not allow such a thing as preaching or teaching on his plantation. He says it is bad for them. We always allowed it; but I don't know."
"Colonel Joram is a heathen himself, you know, mother," said Preston. "Don't hold him up."
"I will hold him up for a gentleman, and a very successful planter," said Mrs. Gary. "No place is better worked or managed than Crofts. If the estate of Magnolia were worked and kept as well, it would be worth half as much again as it ever has been. But there is the difference of the master's eye. My brother-in-law never could be induced to settle at Magnolia, nor at his own estates either. He likes it better in the cold North."
Miss Pinshon made no remark whatever in answer to this statement; and the rest of the talk at the breakfast-table was about rice.
After breakfast my school life at Magnolia began. It seemed as if all the threads of my life there were in a hurry to get into my hand. Ah! I had a handful soon! But this was the fashion of my first day with my governess. All the days were not quite so bad; however, it gave the key of them all.
Miss Pinshon bade me come with her to the room she and my aunt had agreed should be the schoolroom. It was the back room of the house, though it had hardly books enough to be