She is a natural lady, and worthy of all respect--a beautiful girl, with no outward sign that she is not wholly white--yet she has the blood of your race in her veins, and is legally a slave." "Lordy, an she nebber know'd it till just now ?" "No; I can only wonder at her meeting the truth as she does.

Perhaps I had better tell you the story--it is very brief.

She is the illegitimate daughter of a son of the late Judge Beaucaire, and a slave mother known as Delia, a quadroon woman.

The boy disappeared years ago, before she was born, and is probably dead, and she has been brought up, and educated exactly as if she was the Judge's own child.
She has never known otherwise, until those men came to the house the other night." "An'-- an' de ol' Jedge, he nebber done set her free ?" "No; nor the mother.

I do not know why, only that it is a fact." "An' now she done b'long ter dis yere Massa Kirby ?" "Yes, he won all the Beaucaire property, including the slaves, in a poker game on the river, the night Beaucaire died." "Ah done heered all 'bout dat, sah.