I must confess that I was more than once guilty of irritation when Miss
Caroline spoke thus slightingly of her "boy"--of one who had been unable
to view himself as other than her personal property. Again and again it
seemed to me that, fine little creature that she was, her tone toward
Clem lacked the right feeling. I should not have demanded gratitude
precisely; at least no bald expression of it. But a manner of speech
denoting, if not wording, a recognition of his unswerving loyalty would
have accorded better with the estimate I had otherwise formed of her
character. The absence of any tone or word that even one so devoted as I
could construe to her advantage was puzzling in the extreme.
Still, feeling toward her as I did, I was compelled to excuse her as
best I might by attributing her hardness to an evil system now happily
abolished. But the nerves in my lost arm seemed to tingle with a secret
satisfaction when I thought of Clem's empty reward for his life-work and
remembered that I had helped, though ever so little, to free him and his
kind from a bond so unfortunate for each of the parties to it.
The winter deepened about us, chill and bleak and ravaging.
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