er,--the small, soft arms trustingly holding on to your neck?

For the child slept. At first, the novelty and alarm kept him waking;
but his mother so hurriedly repressed every breath or sound, and so
assured him that if he were only still she would certainly save him,
that he clung quietly round her neck, only asking, as he found himself
sinking to sleep,

"Mother, I don't need to keep awake, do I?"

"No, my darling; sleep, if you want to."

"But, mother, if I do get asleep, you won't let him get me?"

"No! so may God help me!" said his mother, with a paler cheek, and a
brighter light in her large dark eyes.

"You're _sure_, an't you, mother?"

"Yes, _sure_!" said the mother, in a voice that startled herself; for it
seemed to her to come from a spirit within, that was no part of her;
and the boy dropped his little weary head on her shoulder, and was soon
asleep. How the touch of those warm arms, the gentle breathings that
came in her neck, seemed to add fire and spirit to her movements! It
seemed to her as if strength poured into her in electric streams,
from every gentle touch and movement of the sleeping, confiding child.
Sublime is the dominion of the mind over the body, that, for a time, can
make flesh and nerve impregnable, and string the sinews like steel, so
that the weak become so mighty.

The boundaries of the farm, the grove, the wood-lot, passed by her
dizzily, as she walked on; and still she went, leaving one familiar
object after another, slacking not, pausing not, till reddening daylight
found her many a long mile from all traces of any familiar objects upon
the open highway.

She had often been, with her mistress, to visit some connections, in the
little village of T----, not far from the Ohio river, and knew the road
well. To go thither, to escape across the Ohio river, were the first
hurried outlines of her plan of escape; beyond that, she could only hope
in God.

When horses and vehicles began to move along the highway, with that
alert perception peculiar to a state of excitement, and which seems to
be a sort of inspiration, she became aware that her headlong pace and
distracted air might bring on her remark and suspicion. She therefore
put the boy on the ground, and, adjusting her dress and bonnet,
she walked on at as rapid a pace as she thought consistent with the
preservation of appearances. In her little bundle she had provided a
store of cakes and apples, which she used as expedients