The wrinkles on June's brow were strangely folded together
with agitation; but nobody saw them.
"Will you sing for me next Sunday?" repeated Mrs. Randolph.
There was a struggle in the child's heart, as great almost as
a child's heart can bear. The answer came, when it came,
tremblingly: "I can't, mamma."
"You cannot?" said Mrs. Randolph.
"I can't, mamma."
The chastisement which followed was so severe, that June was
moved out of all the habits of her life, to interfere in
another's cause. The white-skinned race were no mark for
trouble in June's mind; least of them all, her little charge.
And if white skin was no more delicate in reality than dark
skin, it answered to the lash much more speakingly.
"Missus, you'll kill her!" June said, using in her agitation a
carefully disused form of speech; for June was a freed-woman.
A slight turn of the whip brought the lash sharply across her
wrist, with the equally sharp words, "Mind your own business!"
A thrill went through the woman, like an electric spark,
firing a whole life-train of feeling and memory; but the lines
of her face never moved, and not the stirring of a muscle told
what the touch had reached, besides a few nerves.
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