Reassured by the prospect of soon seeing her uncle again, Mingee seemed well contented to remain with us, and the inaugural ceremony of washing her face being gone through, we hoped that we might have good luck with our little black bargain. A few hours afterwards the dreaded mother appeared. She had answered so long to the name of Sally, that the people for whom she had occasionally fetched water took it rather ill of her that she had lately dubbed herself Annie, and would reply to no other appellation except under protest, and the same persons further objected to her that she called herself a lady, which is, however, a style that I have also known white women to assume on very insufficient grounds.
I saw no reason for taking exception at either of these peculiarities, but a third charge which was urged against her, viz, of greediness after money, proved insuperable on her explaining that she would allow us to keep Mingee on no other terms than that of paying a rather heavy weekly tribute to herself for the favour of feeding, clothing, and teaching her daughter. Thus our first trial dropped through, and two years afterwards poor Mingee was handed over to her betrothed, a middle-aged man with one wife already. This lady, who if she had been white would probably have shown herself an able champion of woman's rights, began to beat the bride two days after the wedding, and Mingee soon bettered herself by running away with a young half-caste of an age to suit her own, an evasion which the elder wife regarded with much complacency, and which was probably the end that she had in view when she first commenced hostilities.
The fugitives had both of them a leaning towards
