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“No, dear cousin, far from it. I only wish to preserve for myself a lesson of fortitude, and of elevation of mind, learnt from a slave, such as few patrician philosophers can teach us.”

“What a strange idea! Indeed, Agnes, I have often thought that you make too much of that class of people. After all, what are they?”

Saint Agnes. From an old vase preserved in the Vatican Museum.

“Human beings as much as ourselves, endowed with the same reason, the same feelings, the same organization. Thus far you will admit, at any rate, to go no higher. Then they form part of the same family; and if God, from whom comes our life, is thereby our Father, He is theirs as much, and consequently they are our brethren.”

“A slave my brother or sister, Agnes? The gods forbid it! They are our property and our goods; and I have no notion of their being allowed to move, to act, to think, or to feel, except as it suits their masters, or is for their advantage.”

“Come, come,” said Agnes, with her sweetest tones, “do not let us get into a warm discussion. You are too candid and honorable not to feel, and to be ready to acknowledge, that to-day you have been outdone by a slave in all that you most admire,—in mind, in reasoning, in truthfulness, and in heroic fortitude. Do not answer me; I see it in that tear. But, dearest cousin, I will save you from a repetition of your pain. Will you grant me my request?”