GRADUAL RETURN OF HAPPY SPIRITS—BRIGHTER PROSPECTS—AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE.

When I began to gain strength Miss Nancy took me out in a carriage of evenings; and had it not been for the melancholy recollections that hung like a pall around my heart, life would have been beautiful to me. As we drove slowly through the brightly-lighted streets, and looked in at the gaudy and flaunting windows, where the gayest and most elegant articles of merchandise were exhibited, I remarked to Miss Nancy, with a sigh, "Life might be made a very gay and cheerful thing—almost a pleasure, were it not for the wickedness of men."

"Ah, yes, it might, indeed," she replied, and the big tears rested upon her eyelids.

One evening when we had returned from a drive, I noticed that she ate very little supper, and her hand trembled violently.

"You are sick, Miss Nancy," I said.

"Yes, Ann, I feel strangely," she replied.

"To-morrow you must go for my brother, and I will have a lawyer to draw up my will. It would be dreadful if I were to die suddenly without making a provision for you; then the bonds of slavery would be riveted upon you, for by law you would pass into my brother's possession."

"Don't trouble yourself about it now, dear Miss Nancy," I said; "your life is more precious than my liberty."

"Not so, my good girl. The dawn of your life was dark, I hope that the close may be bright. The beginning of mine was full of flowers; the close will be serene, I trust; but ah, I've outlived many a blessed hope that was a very rainbow in my dreaming years."

I had always thought Miss Nancy's early life had been filled with trouble; else why and whence her strange, subdued, melancholy nature! How much I would have given had she told me her history; yet I would not add to her sadness by asking her to tell me of it.

The next morning I went for Mr. Moodwell, who, at Miss Nancy's instance, summoned a notary. The will was drawn up and witnessed by two competent persons.

After this she began to improve rapidly. Her strength of body and cheerfulness returned. About this time my peace of mind began to be restored. Of my poor mother I never spoke, after hearing the particulars that followed her death. She was hurriedly buried, without psalm or sermon. No notice was taken by the citizens of her murder—why should there be? She was but a poor slave, grown old and gray in the service of the white man; and if her master chose to whip her to death, who had a right to gainsay him? She was his property to have and to hold; to use or to kill, as he thought best!

Give us no more Fourth of July celebrations; the rather let us have a Venetian oligarchy!

Miss Nancy, in her kind, persuasive manner, soon lured my thoughts away from such gloomy contemplations. She sought to point out the pleasant, easy pathway of wisdom and religion, and I thank her now for the good lessons she then taught me! Beneath such influence I gradually grew reconciled to my troubles. Miss Nancy fervently prayed that they might be sanctified to my eternal good; and so may they!

Louise came often to see me, and I found her then as now, the kindest and most willing friend; everything that she could do to please me she did. She brought me many gifts of books, flowers, fruits, &c. I may have been petulant and selfish in my grief; but those generous friends bore patiently with me.

Pleasant walks I used to take with Henry of evenings, and he was then so full of hope, for he had almost realized the sum of money that his master required of him.

"Master will be down early in September," he said, as we strolled along one evening in August, "and I think by borrowing a little from Miss Nancy, I shall be able to pay down all that I owe him, and then, dearest, I shall be free—free! only think of it! Of me being a free man, master of myself! and when we go to the North we will be married, and both of us will live with Miss Nancy, and guard her declining days."

Happy tears were shining in his bright eyes, like dew-pearls; but, with a strong, manly hand he dashed them away, and I clung the fonder to that arm, that I hoped would soon be able to protect me.

"There is one foolish little matter, dearest, that I will mention, more to excite your merriment, than fear," said Henry with an odd smile.

"What is it?"

"Well, promise me not to care about it; only let it give you a good laugh."

"Yes, I promise."

"Well," and he paused for a moment, "there is a girl living near the G—— House. She belongs to Mr. Bodley, and has taken a foolish fancy to me; has actually made advances, even more than advances, actual offers of love! She says she used to know you, and, on one occasion, attempted to speak discreditably of you; though I quickly gave her to understand that I would not listen to it. Why do you tremble so, Ann?"

And truly I trembled so violently, that if it had not been for the support that his arm afforded me, I should have fallen to the ground.

"What is her name?" I asked.

"Melinda, and says she once belonged to Mr. Peterkin."

"Yes, she did. We used to call her Lindy."

I then told him what an evil spirit she had been in my path; and ventured to utter a suspicion that her work of harm was yet unfinished, that she meant me further injury.

"I know her now, dearest. You have unmasked her, and, with me, she can have no possible power."

I seemed to be satisfied, though in reality I was not, for apprehension of an indefinable something troubled me sorely. The next day Miss Nancy observed my troubled abstraction, and inquired the cause, with so much earnestness, that I could not withhold my confidence, and gave her a full account.

"And you think she will do you an injury?"

"I fear so."

"But have you not forestalled that by telling Henry who she is, and how she has acted toward you?"

"Yes, ma'm, and have been assured by him that she can do me no harm; but the dread remains."

"Oh, you are in a weak, nervous state; I am astonished at Henry for telling you such a thing at this time."

"He thought, ma'm, that it would amuse me, as a fine joke; and so I supposed I should have enjoyed it."

She did all she could to divert my thoughts, made Henry bring his banjo, and play for me of evenings; bought pleasant romances for me to read; ordered a carriage for a daily ride; purchased me many pretty articles of apparel; but, most of all, I appreciated her kind and cheerful talk, in which she strove to beguile me from everything gloomy or sad.

Once she sent me down to spend the day with Louise at the G—— House. There was quite a crowd at the hotel. Southerners, who had come up to pass their summer at the watering-places in Kentucky, had stopped here, and, finding comfortable lodgment, preferred it to the springs; then there were many others travelling to the North and East via L——, who were stopping there. This increased Henry's duties, so that I saw him but seldom during the day. Once or twice he came to Louise's room, and told me that he was unusually busy; but that he had earned four dollars that day, from different persons, in small change, and that he would be able to make his final payment the next month.

All this was very encouraging, and I was in unusually fine spirits. As Louise and I sat talking in the afternoon, she remarked—

"Well, Ann, early next month Henry will make his last payment; and we have concluded to go North the latter part of the same month. When will Miss Nancy be ready to go?"

"Oh, she can make her arrangements to start at the same time. I will speak to her about it this evening."

And then, as we sat planning about a point of location, a shadow darkened the door. I looked up—and, after a long separation, despite both natural and artificial changes, I recognized Lindy! I let my sewing fall from my hands and gazed upon her with as much horror as if she had been an apparition! Louise spoke kindly to her, and asked her to walk in.

"Why, how d'ye do, Ann? I hearn you was livin' in de city, and intended to come an' see you."

I stammered out something, and she seated herself near me, and began to revive old recollections.

"They are not pleasant, Lindy, and I would rather they should be forgotten."

"Laws, I's got a very good home now; but I 'tends to marry some man that will buy me, and set me free! Now, I's got my eye sot on Henry."

I trembled violently, but did not trust myself to speak. Louise, however, in a quick tone, replied:

"He is engaged, and soon to be married to Ann."

"Laws! I doesn't b'lieve it; Ann shan't take him from me."

Though this was said playfully, it was easy for me to detect, beneath the seeming levity, a strong determination, on her part, to do her very worst. No wonder that I trembled before her, when I remembered how powerful an enemy she had been in former times.

With a few other remarks she left, and Louise observed:

"That Lindy is a queer girl. With all her ignorance and ugliness, she excites my dread when I am in her presence—a dread of a supposed and envenomed power, such as the black cat possesses."

"Such has ever been the feeling, Louise, that she has excited in me. She has done me harm heretofore; and do you know, I think she means me ill now. I have uttered this suspicion to Henry and Miss Nancy, but they both laughed it to scorn—saying she was powerless to injure me; but still my fear remains, and, when I think of her, I grow sick at heart."

Upon my return home that evening I told Miss Nancy of the meeting with Lindy, and of the conversation, but she attached no importance to it.

No one living beneath the vine and fig-tree of Miss Nancy's planting, and sharing the calm blessedness of her smiles, could be long unhappy! Her life, as well as words, was a proof that human nature is not all depraved. In thinking over the rare combination of virtues that her character set forth, I have marvelled what must have been her childhood. Certainly she could never have possessed the usual waywardness of children. Her youth must have been an exception to the general rule. I cannot conceive her with the pettishness and proneness to quarrel, which we naturally expect in children. I love to think of her as a quiet little Miss, discarding the doll and play-house, turning quietly away from the frolicsome kitten—seeking the leafy shade of the New England forests—peering with a curious, thoughtful eye into the woodland dingle—or straining her gaze far up into the blue arch of heaven—or questioning, with a child's idle speculation, the whence and the whither of the mysterious wind. 'Tis thus I have pictured her childhood! She was a strange, gifted, unusual woman;—who, then, can suppose that her infancy and youth were ordinary?

To this day her memory is gratefully cherished by hundreds. Many little pauper children have felt the kindness of her charity; and those who are now independent remember the time when her bounty rescued them from want, and "they rise up to call her blessed!"

Often have I gone with her upon visits and errands of charity. Through many a dirty alley have those dainty feet threaded a dangerous way; and up many a dizzy, dismal flight of ricketty steps have I seen them ascend, and never heard a petulant word, or saw a haughty look upon her face! She never went upon missions of charity in a carriage, or, if she was too weak to walk all the way, she discharged the vehicle before she got in sight of the hovel. "Let us not be ostentatious," she would say, when I interposed an objection to her taking so long a walk. "Besides," she added, "let us give no offence to these suffering poor ones. Let them think we come as sisters to relieve them; not as Dives, flinging to Lazarus the crumbs of our bounty!"

Beautiful Christian soul! baptized with the fire of the Holy Ghost, endowed with the same saintly spirit that rendered lovely the life of her whom the Saviour called Mother! thou art with the Blessed now! After a life of earnest, godly piety, thou hast gone to receive thine inheritance above, and wear the Amaranthine Crown! for thou didst obey the Saviour's sternest mandate—sold thy possessions, and gave all to the poor!