"There were only the house servants gathered this morning."
"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."
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 seems 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.