"Engaged, is she?" said Lisette, eagerly, female curiosity getting the better of every other consideration; "she always did have lovers, just, you know, as I used to."

"Yes; but, Lisette, she will marry, some time, and what a thing that would be for you and me! On her husband will depend all my happiness for all my life. He may set her against me; he may not like me. Oh, Lisette! I've seen trouble enough coming of marriages; and I was hoping, you see, that before that time came the money for my freedom would all be paid in, and I should be my own man. But, now, here it is. Just as the sum is almost made up, I must pay out five hundred dollars of it, and that throws us back two or three years longer. And what makes me feel the most anxious is, that I'm pretty sure Miss Nina will marry one of these lovers before long."

"Why, what makes you think so, Harry?"

"Oh, I've seen girls before now, Lisette, and I know the signs."

"What does she do? What does she say? Tell me, now, Harry."

"Oh, well, she runs on abusing the man, after her sort; and she's so very earnest and positive in telling me she don't like him."

"Just the way I used to do about you, Harry, isn't it?"

"Besides," said Harry, "I know, by the kind of character she gives of him, that she thinks of him very differently from what she ever did of any man before. Miss Nina little knows, when she is rattling about her beaux, what I'm thinking of. I'm saying, all the while, to myself, 'Is that man going to be my master?' and this Clayton, I'm very sure, is going to be my master."

"Well, isn't he a good man?"

"She says he is; but there's never any saying what good men will do, never. Good men think it right sometimes to do the strangest things. This man may alter the whole agreement between us,—he will have a right to do it, if he is her husband; he may refuse to let me buy myself; and, then, all the money that I've paid will go for nothing."

"But, certainly, Harry, Miss Nina will never consent to such a thing."

"Lisette, Miss Nina is one thing, but Mrs. Clayton may be quite another thing. I've seen all that, over and over again. I tell you, Lisette, that we who live on other people's looks and words, we watch and think a great deal! Ah! we come to be very sharp, I can tell you. The more Miss Nina has liked me, the less her husband may like me; don't you know that?"

"No; Harry, you don't dislike people I like."

"Child, child, that's quite another thing."

"Well, then, Harry, if you feel so bad about it, what makes you pay this money for Miss Nina? She don't know anything about it; she don't ask you to. I don't believe she would want you to, if she did know it. Just go and pay it in, and have your freedom-papers made out. Why don't you tell her all about it?"