"Certainly."
"And who would buy them?"
"Why, all the world; everybody. There has been nobody sold off
the Magnolia estate, I believe, in a long time; but nothing is
more common, Daisy; everybody is doing it everywhere, when he
has got too many servants, or when he has got too few."
"And do you mean," said I, "that Darry and Margaret and
Theresa and all the rest here, have been _bought?_"
"No; almost all of them have been born on the place."
"Then it is not true of these," I said.
"Yes, it is; for their mothers and fathers were bought. It is
the same thing."
"Who bought them?" I asked hastily.
"Why! our mothers, and grandfather and great-grandfather."
"_Bought_ the fathers and mothers of all these hundreds of
people?" said I, a slow horror creeping into my veins, that
yet held childish blood, and but half comprehended.
"Certainly — ages ago," said Preston. "Why, Daisy, I thought
you knew all about it."
"But who sold them first?" said I, my mind in its utter
rejection of what was told me, seeking every refuge from
accepting it.
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