SOLD—LIFE AS A SLAVE—PEN—CHARLES' STORY—UNCLE PETER'S TROUBLE—A STAR PEEPING FORTH FROM THE CLOUD.

Whilst the hours thus rosily slided away, and I dreamed amid the verdure of existence, the syren charmed me wisely, indeed, with her beautiful promises. Poor, simple-hearted, trusting slaves! We could not see upon what a rocking bridge our feet were resting, how slippery and unsubstantial was the flowery declivity whereon we stood. There we reposed in the gentle light of a happy trance; we saw not the clouds, dark and tempest-charged, that were rising rapidly to hide the stars from our view.

One Sunday afternoon, Henry having finished his work much earlier than usual, and done some little act whereby the good will of his temporary master (the keeper of the hotel) was propitiated, and Miss Jane and Mr. Summerville having gone out, I willingly consented to his proposal to take a walk. We accordingly wandered off to a beautiful wood, just without the city limits, a very popular resort with the negroes and poorer classes, though it was the only pretty green woodland near the city. Yet, because the "common people and negroes" (a Kentucky phrase) went there, it was voted vulgar, and avoided by the rich and refined. One blessing was thus given to the poor!

Henry and I sought a retired part of the grove, and, seating ourselves on an old, moss-grown log, we talked with as much hope, and indulged in as rosy dreams, as happier and lordlier lovers. For three bright hours we remained idly rambling through the flower-realm of imagination; but, as the long shadows began to fall among the leaves, we prepared to return home.

That night when I assisted Miss Jane in getting ready for bed, I observed that she was unusually gloomy and petulant. I could do nothing to please her; she boxed my ears repeatedly; stuck pins in me, called me "detestable nigger," &c. Even the presence of Louise failed to restrain her, and I knew that something awful had happened.

For two or three days this cloud that hung about her deepened and darkened, until she absolutely became unendurable. I often found her eyes red and swollen, as though she had spent the entire night in weeping.

Mr. Summerville was gloomy and morose, never saying much, and always speaking harshly to his wife.

At length the explosion came. One morning he said to me, "gather up your clothes, Ann, and come with me; I have sold you."

Though I was stricken as by a thunderbolt, I dared not express my surprise, or even ask who had bought me. All that I ventured to say was,

"Master William, I have a trunk."

"Well, shoulder it yourself. I'm not going to pay for having it taken."

Though my heart was wrung I said nothing, and, lifting up my trunk, beneath the weight of which I nearly sank, I followed Master William out of the house.

"Good-bye, Miss Jane," I said.

"Good-bye, and be a good girl," she replied, kindly, and my heart almost softened toward her; for in that moment I felt as if deserted by every faculty.

"Come on, Ann, come on," urged Master William; and I mechanically obeyed.

In the cross-hall I met Louise, who exclaimed, "Why, Ann, where are you going?"

"I don't know, Louise, I'm sold."

"Sold! Who's bought you?"

"I don't know—Master William didn't tell me."

"Who's bought her, Mr. Summerville?"

"The man to whom I sold her," he answered, with a laugh.

"But who is he?" persisted Louise, without noticing the joke.

"Well, Atkins, a negro-trader down here, on Second street."

"Good gracious!" she cried out; then, turning to me, said, "does Henry know it?"

"I have not seen him." She darted off from us, and we walked on. I hoped that she would not see Henry, for I could not bear to meet him. It would dispossess me of the little forced composure that I had; but, alas! for the fulfilment of my hopes! in the lower hall, with a countenance full of terror, he stood.

"What are you going to do with Ann, Mr. Summerville?" he inquired.

"I have sold her to Atkins, and am now taking her to the pen."

Alas! though his life, his blood, his soul cried out against it, he dared not offer any objection or entreaty; but oh, that hopeless look of brokenness of heart! I see it now, and "it comes over me like the raven o'er the infected house."

"I'll take your trunk round for you, Ann, to-night. It is too heavy for you," and so saying, he kindly removed it from my shoulder. This little act of kindness was the added drop to the already full glass, and my heart overflowed. I wept heartily. His tender, "don't cry, Ann," only made me weep the more; and when I looked up and saw his own eyes full of tears, and his lip quivering with the unspoken pang, I felt (for the slave at least) how wretched a possession is life!

Master William cut short this parting interview, by saying,

"Never mind that trunk, Henry, Ann can carry it very well."

And, as I was about to re-shoulder it, Henry said,

"No, Ann, you mustn't carry it. I'll do it for you to-night, when my work is over. She is a woman, Mr. Summerville, and it's heavy for her; but it will not be anything for me."

"Well, if you have a mind to, you may do it; but I haven't any time to parley now, come on."

Henry pressed my hand affectionately, and I saw the tears roll in a stream down his bronzed cheeks. I did not trust myself to speak; I merely returned the pressure of his hand, and silently followed Master William.

Through the streets, up one and across another, we went, until suddenly we stopped in front of a two-story brick house with an iron fence in front. Covering a small portion of the front view of the main building, an office had been erected, a plain, uncarpeted room, from the door of which projected a sheet-iron sign, advertising to the passers-by, "negroes bought and sold here." We walked into this room, and upon the table found a small bell, which Mr. Summerville rang. In answer to this, a neatly-dressed negro boy appeared. To Master William's interrogatory, "Is Mr. Atkins in?" he answered, most obsequiously, that he was, and instantly withdrew. In a few moments the door opened, and a heavy man about five feet ten inches entered. He was of a most forbidding appearance; a tan-colored complexion, with very black hair and whiskers, and mean, watery, milky, diseased-looking eyes. He limped as he walked, one leg being shorter than the other, and carried a huge stick to assist his ambulations.

"Good morning, Mr. Atkins."

"Good morning, sir."

"Here is the girl we were speaking of yesterday."

"Well," replied the other, as he removed a lighted cigar from his mouth, "she is likely enough. Take off yer bonnet, girl, let me look at yer eyes. They are good; open your mouth—no decayed teeth—all sound; hold up your 'coat, legs are good, some marks on 'em—now the back—pretty much and badly scarred. Well, what's the damage?"

"Seven hundred, cash down. You can recommend her as a first-rate house and lady's maid."

"What's your name, girl?"

"Ann," I replied.

"Ann, go within," he added, pointing to the door through which he had entered.

I turned to Mr. Summerville, saying,

"Good-bye, Master William. I wish you well."

"Good-bye, Ann," and he extended his hand to me; "I hope Mr. Atkins will get you a good home."

Dropping a courtesy and a tear, I passed through the door designated by Mr. Atkins, and stood within the pen. Here I was met by the mulatto who had answered the bell.

"Has you bin bought, Miss?"

"Yes, Mr. Atkins just bought me."

"Why did your Masser sell you?"

"I don't know."

"Oh, that's what the most of 'em says. It 'pears so quare ter me for a Masser to sell good sarvants; but I guess you'll soon git a home; fur you is 'bout the likeliest yaller gal I ever seed. Now, thim rale black 'uns hardly ever goes off here. We has to send 'em down river, or let 'em go at a mighty low price."

"How often do you have sales?"

"Oh, we don't have 'em at all. That's we don't have public 'uns. We sells 'em privately like; but we buys up more; and when we gits a large number, we ships 'em down de river."

Wishing to cut short his garrulity, I asked him to show me the room where I was to stay.

"In here, wid de rest of 'em," he said, as he opened the door of a large shed-room, where I found some ten or twelve negroes, women and men, ranged round on stools and chairs, all neatly dressed, some of them looking very happy, others with down-cast, sorrow-stricken countenances.

One bright, gold-colored man, with long, silky black hair, and raven eyes, full of subdued power, stood leaning his elbow against the mantel. His melancholy face and pensive attitude struck a responsive feeling, and I turned with a sisterly sentiment toward him.

I have always been of a taciturn disposition, shunning company; but this man impressed me so favorably, he seemed the very counterpart of myself, that I forgot my usual reserve, and, after a few moments' investigation of my companions, the faces of most of whom were unpleasant to me, I approached him and inquired—

"Have you been long here?"

"Only a few days," he answered, as he lifted his mournful eyes towards mine, and I could see from their misty light, that they were dimmed by tears.

"Are you sold?" I asked.

"Oh yes," and he shuddered terribly.

I did not venture to say more; but stood looking at him, when, suddenly he turned to me, saying,

"I know that you are sold."

"Yes," I replied, with that strong sort of courage that characterized me.

"You take it calmly," he said; "have you no friends?"

"You do not talk like one familiar with slavery, to speak of a slave's having friends."

"True, true; but I have—oh, God!—a wife and children, and from them I was cruelly torn, and—and—and I saw my poor wife knocked flat upon the floor, and because I had the manhood to say that it was wrong, they tied me up and slashed me. All this is right, because my skin is darker than theirs."

What a fearful groan he gave, as he struck his breast violently.

"The bitterness of all this I too have tasted, and my only wonder is, that I can live on. My heart will not break."

"Mine has long since broken; but this body will not die. My poor children! I would that they were dead with their poor slave-mother."

"Why did your master sell you?"

"Because he wanted to buy a piano for his daughter," and his lip curled.

To gratify the taste of his child, that white man had separated a father from his children, had recklessly sundered the holiest ties, and broken the most solemn and loving domestic attachments; and to such heathenism the public gave its hearty approval, because his complexion was a shade or so darker than Caucasians. Oh, Church of Christ! where is thy warning voice? Is not this a matter, upon the injustice of which thy great voice should pronounce a malison?

"My name is Charles, what is yours?"

"Ann."

"Well, Ann," he resumed, "I like your face; you are the only one I've seen in this pen that I was willing to talk with. You have just come. Tell me why were you sold?"

In a few concise words I told him my story. He seemed touched with sympathy.

"Poor girl!" he murmured, "like all the rest of our tribe, you have tasted of trouble."

I talked with him all the morning, and we both, I think, learned what a relief it is to unclose the burdened heart to a congenial, listening spirit.

When we were summoned out to our dinner, I found a very bountiful and pretty good meal served up. It is the policy of the trader to feed the slaves well; for, as Mr. Atkins said, "the fat, oily, smooth, cheerful ones, always sold the best;" and, as this business is purely a speculation, they do everything, even humane things, for the furtherance of their mercenary designs. I had not much appetite, neither had Charles, as was remarked by some of the coarser and more abject of our companions; and I was pained to observe their numerous significant winks and blinks. One of them, the old gray mouse of the company, an ancient "Uncle Ned," who had taken it pretty roughly all his days, and who being of the lower order of Epicureans, was, perhaps, happier at the pen than he had ever been. And this fellow, looking at me and Charley, said,

"They's in lub;" ha! ha! ha! went round the circle. I noticed Charley's brows knitting severely. I read his thoughts. I knew that he was thinking of his poor wife and of his fatherless children, and inwardly swearing unfaltering devotion to them.

Persuasively I said to him, "Don't mind them. They are scarcely accountable."

"I know it, I know it," he bitterly replied, "but I little thought I should ever come to this. Sold to a negro-trader, and locked up in a pen with such a set! I've always had pride; tried to behave myself well, and to make money for my master, and now to be sold to a trader, away from my wife and children!" He shook his head and burst into tears. I felt that I had no words to console him, and I ventured to offer none.

I managed, by aid of conversation with Charley, to pass the day tolerably. There may be those of my readers who will ask how this could be. But let them remember that I had never been the pampered pet, the child of indulgence; but that I was born to the ignominious heritage of American slavery. My feelings had been daily, almost hourly, outraged. This evil had not fallen on me as the first misfortune, but as one of a series of linked troubles "long drawn out." So I was comparatively fitted for endurance, though by no means stoical; for a certain constitutional softness of temperament rendered me always susceptible of anguish to a very high degree. At length evening drew on—the beautiful twilight that was written down so pleasantly in my memory; the time that had always heralded my re-union with Henry. Now, instead of a sweet starlight or moonlight stroll, I must betake myself to a narrow, "cribbed, cabined, and confined" apartment, through which no truant ray or beam could force an entrance! How my soul sickened over the recollections of lovelier hours! Whilst I moodily sat in one corner of the room, hugging to my soul the thought of him from whom I was now forever parted, a sound broke on my ear, a sound—a music-sound, that made my nerves thrill and my blood tingle; 'twas the sound of Henry's voice. I heard him ask—

"Where is she? let me speak to her but a single word;" and how that mellow voice trembled with the burden of painful emotion! Eagerly I sprang forward; reserve and maidenly coyness all forgotten. My only wish was to lay my weary head upon that brave, protecting breast—weep, ay, and die there! "Oh, for a swift death," I frantically cried, as I felt his arms about me, while my head was pillowed just above his warm and loving heart. I felt its manly pulsations as with a soft lullaby they seemed hushing me to the deep, eternal sleep, which I so ardently craved! Better, a thousand times, for death to part us, than the white man's cruelty! So we both thought. I read his secret wish in the hopeless, vacant, but still so agonized look, that he bent upon me. For one moment, the other slaves huddled together in blank amazement. This was to them "a show," as "uncle Ned" subsequently styled it.

"I've brought your trunk, Ann; Mr. Atkins ordered me to leave it without; though you'll get it."

"Thank you, Henry; it is of small account to me now: yet there are in it some few of your gifts that I shall always value."

"Oh, Ann, don't, pray don't talk so mournfully! Is there no hope? Can't you be sold somewhere in the city? I have got about fifty dollars now in money. I'd stop buying myself, and buy you; make my instalments in fifties or hundreds, as I could raise it; but I spoke to a lawyer about it, and he read the law to me, showing that I, as a slave, couldn't be allowed to hold property; and there is no white man in whom I have sufficient confidence, or who would be willing to accommodate me in this way. Mine is a deplorable case; but I'm going to see what can be done. I'll look about among the citizens, to see if some of them will not buy you; for I cannot be separated from you. It will kill me; it will, it will!"

"Oh, don't, Henry, don't! for myself I can stand much; but when I think of you."

He caught me passionately to his breast; and, in that embrace, he seemed to say, "They shall not part us!"

He seated himself on a low stool beside me, with one of my hands clasped in his, and thus, with his tender eyes bent upon me, such is the illusion of love, I forgot the terror by which I was surrounded, and yielded myself to a fascination as absorbing as that which encircled me in the grove on that memorable Sunday evening.

"Why, Henry, is this you?" and a strong hand was laid upon his shoulder. Looking up, I beheld Charley.

"And is this you, Charles Allen?" asked the other.

"Yes, this is me. I dare say you scarcely expected to find me here, where I never thought I should be."

At this I was reminded of the significant ejaculation that Ophelia makes in her madness, "Lord, we know what we are, but we know not what we may be!"

"I am sold, Henry," continued Charles, "sold away from my poor wife and children;" his voice faltered and the big tears rolled down his cheeks.

"I see from your manner toward Ann, that she is or was expected to be your wife."

"Yes, she was pledged to be."

"Yes, and is," I added with fervor. At this, Henry only pressed my hand tightly.

"Yet," pursued Charles, "she is taken from you."

"She is," was the brief and bitter reply.

"Now, Henry Graham, are we men? and do we submit to these things?"

"Alas!" and the words came through Henry's set teeth, "we are not men; we are only chattels, property, merchandise, slaves."

"But is it right for us to be so? I feel the high and lordly instincts of manhood within me. Must I conquer them? Must I stifle the eloquent cry of Nature in my breast? Shall I see my wife and children left behind to the mercy of a hard master, and willingly desert them simply because another man says that, in exchange for this sacrifice of happiness and hope, his daughter shall play upon Chickering's finest piano?"

Heavens! can I ever forget the princely air with which he uttered these words! His swarthy cheek glowed with a beautiful crimson, and his rich eye fairly blazed with the fire of a seven-times heated soul, whilst the thin lip curled and the fine nostril dilated, and the whole form towered supremely in the majesty of erect and perfect manhood!

"Hush, Charley, hush," I urged, "this is no place for the expression of such sentiments, just and noble as they may be."

Again Henry pressed my hand.

"It may be imprudent, Ann, but I am reckless now. They have done the worst they can do. I defy the sharpest dagger-point. My breast is open to a thousand spears. They can do no more. But how can you, Henry, thus supinely sit by and see yourself robbed of your life's treasure? I cannot understand it. Are you lacking in manliness, in courage? Are you a coward, a slave indeed?"

"Do not listen to him; leave now, Henry, dear, dear Henry," I implored, as I observed the singular expression of his face. "Go now, dearest, without saying another word; for my sake go. You will not refuse me?"

"No, I will not, dear Ann; but there is a fire raging in my veins."

"Yes, and Charley is the incendiary. Go, I beg you."

With a long, fond kiss, he left me, and it was well he did, for in a moment more Mr. Atkins came to give the order for retiring.

I found a very comfortable mattress and covering, on the floor of a good, neatly-carpeted room, which was occupied by five other women. One of them, a gay girl of about fifteen, a full-blooded African, made her pallet close to mine. I had observed her during the day as a garrulous, racketty sort of baggage, that seemed contented with her situation. She was extremely neat in her dress; and her ebony skin had a rich, oily, shiny look, resembling the perfect polish of Nebraska blacking on an exquisite's boot. Partly from their own superiority, but chiefly from contrast with her complexion, shone white as mountain snow, a regular row of ivory teeth. Her large flabby ears were adorned by huge wagon-wheel rings of pinch-beck, and a cumbersome strand of imitation coral beads adorned her inky throat, whilst her dress was of the gaudiest colors, plaided in large bars. Thus decked out, she made quite a figure in the assemblage.

"Is yer name Ann?" she unceremoniously asked.

"Yes," was my laconic reply.

"Mine is Lucy; but they calls me Luce fur short."

No answer being made, she garrulously went on:

"Was that yer husband what comed to see you this evenin'?"

"No."

"Your brother?"

"No."

"Your cousin?"

"Neither."

"Well, he's too young-lookin' fur yer father. Mought he be yer uncle?"

"No."

"Laws, then he mus' be yer sweetheart!" and she chuckled with mirth.

I made no answer.

"Why don't you talk, Ann?"

"I don't feel like it."

"You don't? well, that's quare."

Still I made no comment. Nothing daunted, she went on:

"Is yer gwine down the river with the next lot?"

"I don't know;" but this time I accompanied my reply with a sigh.

"What you grunt fur?"

I could not, though so much distressed, resist a laugh at this singular interrogatory.

"Don't yer want to go South? I does. They say it's right nice down dar. Plenty of oranges. When Masser fust sold me, I was mightily 'stressed; den Missis, she told me dat dar was a sight of oranges down dar, and dat we didn't work any on Sundays, and we was 'lowed to marry; so I got mightily in de notion of gwine. You see Masser Jones never 'lowed his black folks to marry. I wanted to marry four, five men, and he wouldn't let me. Den we had to work all day Sundays; never had any time to make anyting for ourselves; and I does love oranges! I never had more an' a quarter of one in my life."

Thus she wandered on until she fell off to sleep; but the leaden-winged cherub visited me not that night. My eye-lids refused to close over the parched and tear-stained orbs. I dully moved from side to side, changed and altered my position fifty times, yet there was no repose for me.

I saw the dull gray streak of the morning beam, as coldly it played through the gratings of my room. There, scattered in dismal confusion over the floor, lay the poor human beings, for whose lives, health and happiness, save as conducing to the pecuniary advantage of the trafficker, no thought or care was taken. I rose hastily and adjusted my dress, for I had not removed it during the night. The noise of my rising aroused several of the others, and simultaneously they sprang to their feet, apprehensive that they had slept past the prescribed hour for rising. Finding that their alarm was groundless, and that they were by the clock an hour too early, they grumbled a good deal at what they thought my unnecessary awaking. I would have given much to win to my heart the easy indifference as to fate, which many of them wore like a loose glove; but there I was vulnerable at every pore, and wounded at each. What a curse to a slave's life is a sensitive nature!

That day closed as had the preceding, save that at evening Henry did not come as before. I wandered out in the yard, which was surrounded by a high brick-wall, covered at the top with sharp iron spikes, to prevent the escape of slaves. Through this barricaded ground I was allowed to take a little promenade. There was not a shrub or green blade of grass to enliven me; but my eyes lingered not upon the earth. They were turned up to the full moon, shining so round and goldenly from the purple heaven, and, scattered sparsely through the fields of azure, were a few stars, looking brighter and larger from their scarcity.

"Will my death-hour ever come?" I asked myself despairingly. "Have I not tasted of the worst of life? Is not the poisoned cup drained to its last dregs?"

I fancied that I heard a voice answer, as from the clouds,

"No, there are a few bitterer drops that must yet be drunk. Press the goblet still closer to your lips."

I shuddered coldly as the last tones of the imagined voice died away upon the soft night air.

"Is that," I cried, "a prophet warning? Comes it to me now that I may gird my soul for the approaching warfare? Let me, then, put on my helmet and buckler, and, like a life-tired soldier, rush headlong into the thickest of the fight, praying that the first bullet may prove a friend and drink my blood!"

Yet I shrank, like the weakest and most fearful of my race, when the distant cotton-fields rose upon my mental view! There, beneath the heat of a "hot and copper sky," I saw myself wearily tugging at my assigned task; yet my fear was not for the physical trouble that awaited me. Had Henry been going, "down the river" would have had no terror for me; but I was to part from joy, from love, from life itself! Oh, why, why have we—poor bondsmen and bondswomen—these fine and delicate sensibilities? Why do we love? Why are we not all coarse and hard, mere human beasts of burden, with no higher mental or moral conception, than obedience to the will or caprice of our owners?

Night closed over this second weary day. And thus passed on many days and nights. I did some plain sewing by way of employment, and at the command of a mulatto woman, who was the kept mistress of Atkins, and therefore placed in authority over us. Many of the women were hired out to residents of the city on trial, and if they were found to be agreeable and good servants, perhaps they were purchased. Before sending them out, Mr. Atkins always called them to him, and, shaking his cane over their heads, said,

"Now, you d——d hussy, or rascal (as they chanced to be male or female) if you behave yourselves well, you'll find a good home; but you dare to get sick or misbehave, and be sent back to me, and I'll thrash you in an inch of your cursed life."

With this demoniacal threat ringing in their ears, it is not likely that the poor wretches started off with any intention of bad conduct.

We constantly received accessions to our number, but never acquisitions, for the poor, ill-fed, ill-kept wretches that came in there, "sold (as Atkins said) for a mere song," were desolate and revolting to see.

Charley found one or two old books, that he seemed to read and re-read; indifferent novels, perhaps, that served, at least, to keep down the ravening tortures of thought. I lent him my Testament, and he read a great deal in it. He said that he had one, but had left it with his wife. He was a member of the Methodist Church; had gone on Sunday afternoons to a school that had been established for the benefit of colored people, and thus, unknown to his master, had acquired the first principles of a good education. He could read and write, and was in possession of the rudiments of arithmetic. He told me that his wife had not had the opportunities he had, and therefore she was more deficient, but he added, "she had a great thirst for knowledge, such as I have never seen excelled, and rarely equalled. I have known her, after the close of her daily labors, devote the better portion of the night to study. I gave her all the instruction I could, and she was beginning to read with considerable accuracy; but all that is over, past and gone now." And again he ground his teeth fiercely, and a wild, lurid light gathered in his eye.

This man almost made me oblivious of my own grief, in sympathy for his. I did all I could by "moral suasion," as the politicians say, to soften his resentment. I bade him turn his thoughts toward that religion which he had espoused.

"I have no religion for this," he would bitterly say.

And in truth, I fear me much if the heroism of saints would hold out on such occasions. There, fastened to that impassioned husband's heart, playing with its dearest chords, was the fang-like hand of the white man! Oh, slow tortures! in comparison to which that of Prometheus was very pleasure. There is no Tartarus like that of wounded, agonized domestic love! Far away from him, in a lonely cabin, he beheld his stricken wife and all his "pretty chickens" pining and unprotected.

Slowly, after a few days, he relapsed into that stony sort of despair that denies itself the gratification of speech. The change was very painfully visible to me, and I tried, by every artifice, to arouse him; but I had no power to wake him.

And soon learning this, I left him, a remorseless prey to that "rooted sorrow" of the brain.

* * * * * * *

One day, as we all sat in the shed-room, engaged at our various occupations, we were roused by a noise of violent weeping, and something like a rude scuffle just without the door, when suddenly Atkins entered, dragging after him, with his hand close about his throat, a poor negro man, aged and worn, with a head white as cotton.

"Oh, please, Masser, jist let me go back, an' tell de ole 'ooman farewell, an' I won't ax for any more."

"No, you old rascal, you wants to run away. If you say another word about the old voman, I'll beat the life out of you."

"Oh lor', oh lor', de poor ole 'ooman an' de boys; oh my ole heart will bust!" and, sobbing like a child, the old man sank down upon the floor, in the most abandoned grief.

"Here, boys, some of you git the fiddle and play, an' I warrant that old fool will be dancin' in a minnit," said Atkins in his unfeeling way.

Of course this speech met with the most signal applause from "de boys" addressed.

I watched the expression of Charles' face. It was frightful. He sat in one corner, as usual, with an open book in his hand. From it he raised his eyes, and, whilst the scene between Atkins and the old negro was going on, they flashed with an expression that I could not fathom. His brows knit, and his lip curled, yet he spoke no word.

When Atkins withdrew, the old man lay there, still weeping and sobbing piteously. I went up to him, kindly saying,

"What is the matter, old uncle?"

The sound of a kind voice aroused him, and looking up through his streaming tears, he said,

"Oh, chile, I's got a poor ole 'ooman dat lives 'bout half mile in de country. Masser fotch me in town to-day, an' say he was agwine to hire me fur a few weeks. Wal, I beliebed him, bekase Masser has bin hard run fur money, an' I was willin' to hope him 'long, so I consented to be hired in town fur little while, and den go out an' see de ole 'ooman an' de boys Saturday nights. Wal, de fust thing I knowed when I got to town I was sold to a trader. Masser wouldn't tell me hisself; but, when I got here, de gemman what I thought I was hired to, tole me dat Masser Atkins had bought me; an' I wanted to go back an' ask Masser, but he laughed an' say 'twant no use, Masser done gone out home. Oh, lor'! 'peared like dere was nobody to trus' to den. I begged to go an' say good-bye; but dey 'fused me dat, an' Masser Atkins 'gan to swear, an' he struck me 'cross de head. Oh, I didn't tink Masser wud do me so in my ole age!"

I ask you, reader, if for a sorrow like this there was any word of comfort? I thought not, and did not dare try to offer any.

"Will scenes like these ever cease?" I fretfully asked, as I turned to Charles.

"Never!" was the bitter answer.

This old man talked constantly of his little woolly-headed boys. When telling of their sportive gambols, he would smile, even whilst the tears were flowing down his cheeks.

He often had a crowd of slaves around him listening to his talk of "wife and children," but I seldom made one of the number, for it saddened me too much. I knew that he was telling of joys that could never come to him again.

On one of these occasions, when uncle Peter, as he was called, was deep in the merits of his conversation, I was sitting in the corner of the room sewing, when Luce came running breathlessly up to me, with a bunch of beautiful flowers in her hand.

"Oh, Ann," she exclaimed, "dat likely-lookin' yallow man, dat cum to see you, an' fotch yer trunk de fust night yer comed here, was passin' by, an' I was stanin' at de gate; an' he axed me to han' dis to you."

And she gave me the bouquet, which I took, breathing a thousand blessings upon the head of my devoted Henry.

I had often wondered why Louise had never been to see me. She knew very well where I was, and access to me was easy. But I was not long kept in suspense, for, on that very night she came, bringing with her a few sweetmeats, which I distributed among those of my companions who felt more inclined to eat them than I did.

"I have wondered, Louise, why you did not come sooner."

"Well, the fact is, Ann, I've been busy trying to find you a home. I couldn't bear to come without bringing you good news. Henry and I have worked hard. All of our leisure moments have been devoted to it. We have scoured this city over, but with no success; and, hearing yesterday that Mr. Atkins would start down the river to-morrow, with all of you, I could defer coming no longer. Poor Henry is too much distressed to come! He says he'll not sleep this night, but will ransack the city till he finds somebody able and willing to rescue you."

"How does he look?" I asked.

"Six years older than when you saw him last. He takes this very hard; has lost his appetite, and can't sleep at night."

I said nothing; but my heart was full, full to overflowing. I longed to be alone, to fall with my face on the earth and weep. The presence of Louise restrained me, for I always shrank from exposing my feelings.

"Are we going to-morrow?" I inquired.

"Yes, Mr. Atkins told me so this evening. Did you not know of it?"

"No, indeed; am I among the lot?"

After a moment's hesitation she replied,

"Yes, he told me that you were, and, on account of your beauty, he expected you would bring a good price in the Southern market. Oh heavens, Ann, this is too dreadful to repeat; yet you will have to know of it."

"Oh yes, yes;" and I could no longer restrain myself; I fell, weeping, in her arms.

She could not remain long with me, for Mr. Atkins closed up the establishment at half-past nine. Bidding me an affectionate farewell, and assuring me that she would, with Henry, do all that could be done for my relief, she left me.

A most wretched, phantom-peopled night was that! Ten thousand horrors haunted me! Of course I slept none; but imagination seemed turned to a fiend, and tortured me in divers ways.