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modestly, but with a fervent look that astonished her mistress, the foreign slave; “yes, I hope, nay, I intend to survive all this. And more yet; I believe, and know, that out of that charnel-pit which you have so vividly described, there is a hand that will pick out each charred fragment of my frame. And there is a power that will call to reckoning the four winds of heaven, and make each give back every grain of my dust that it has scattered; and I shall be built up once more in this my body, not as yours, or any one’s, bondwoman, but free, and joyful, and glorious, loving for ever, and beloved. This certain hope is laid up in my bosom.”[19]

“What wild visions of an eastern fancy are these, unfitting you for every duty? You must be cured of them. In what school did you learn all this nonsense? I never read of it in any Greek or Latin author.”

“In one belonging to my own land; a school in which there is no distinction known, or admitted, between Greek or barbarian, freeman or slave.”

“What!” exclaimed, with strong excitement, the haughty lady, “without waiting even for that future ideal existence after death; already, even now, you presume to claim equality with me? Nay, who knows, perhaps superiority over me. Come, tell me at once, and without daring to equivocate or disguise, if you do so or not?” And she sat up in an attitude of eager expectation. At every word of the calm reply her agitation increased; and violent passions seemed to contend within her, as Syra said: