Around the cabins of the plantation
people-the human property-the dark sons and daughters of promiscuous
families-are in "heyday glee:" they laughed, chattered, contended,
and sported over the presence of the party;-the overseer had given
them an hour or two to see the party "gwine so;" and they were
overjoyed. Even the dogs, as if incited by an instinctive sense of
some gay scene in which they were to take part, joined their barking
with the jargon of the negroes, while the mules claimed a right to
do likewise. In the cabins near the mansion another scene of fixing,
fussing, toddling, chattering, running here and there with
sun-slouches, white aprons, fans, shades, baskets, and tin pans,
presented itself; any sort of vessel that would hold provender for
the day was being brought forth. Clotilda, her face more cheerful,
is dressed in a nice drab merino, a plain white stomacher, a little
collar neatly turned over: with her plain bodice, her white ruffles
round her wrists, she presents the embodiment of neatness. She is
pretty, very pretty; and yet her beauty has made her the worst
slave-a slave in the sight of Heaven and earth! Her large, meaning
eyes, glow beneath her arched brows, while her auburn hair, laid in
smooth folds over her ears and braided into a heavy circle at the
back of her head, gives her the fascinating beauty of a Norman
peasant. Annette plays around her, is dressed in her very best,--for
Marston is proud of the child's beauty, and nothing is withheld that
can gratify the ambition of the mother, so characteristic, to dress
with fantastic colours: the child gambols at her feet, views its
many-coloured dress, keeps asking various unanswerable questions
about Daddy Bob, Harry, and the pic-nic.
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