bing, and wiping their eyes and
noses, to their hearts' content;--Mrs. Bird had her face fairly hidden
in her pocket-handkerchief; and old Dinah, with tears streaming down her
black, honest face, was ejaculating, "Lord have mercy on us!" with all
the fervor of a camp-meeting;--while old Cudjoe, rubbing his eyes very
hard with his cuffs, and making a most uncommon variety of wry faces,
occasionally responded in the same key, with great fervor. Our senator
was a statesman, and of course could not be expected to cry, like other
mortals; and so he turned his back to the company, and looked out of the
window, and seemed particularly busy in clearing his throat and wiping
his spectacle-glasses, occasionally blowing his nose in a manner that
was calculated to excite suspicion, had any one been in a state to
observe critically.

"How came you to tell me you had a kind master?" he suddenly exclaimed,
gulping down very resolutely some kind of rising in his throat, and
turning suddenly round upon the woman.

"Because he _was_ a kind master; I'll say that of him, any way;--and my
mistress was kind; but they couldn't help themselves. They were owing
money; and there was some way, I can't tell how, that a man had a hold
on them, and they were obliged to give him his will. I listened, and
heard him telling mistress that, and she begging and pleading for
me,--and he told her he couldn't help himself, and that the papers were
all drawn;--and then it was I took him and left my home, and came away.
I knew 't was no use of my trying to live, if they did it; for 't 'pears
like this child is all I have."

"Have you no husband?"

"Yes, but he belongs to another man. His master is real hard to him,
and won't let him come to see me, hardly ever; and he's grown harder and
harder upon us, and he threatens to sell him down south;--it's like I'll
never see _him_ again!"

The quiet tone in which the woman pronounced these words might have led
a superficial observer to think that she was entirely apathetic; but
there was a calm, settled depth of anguish in her large, dark eye, that
spoke of something far otherwise.

"And where do you mean to go, my poor woman?" said Mrs. Bird.

"To Canada, if I only knew where that was. Is it very far off, is
Canada?" said she, looking up, with a simple, confiding air, to Mrs.
Bird's face.

"Poor thing!" said Mrs. Bird, involuntarily.

"Is 't a very great way off, think?" said the woman, earnestly.

"Muc