uggested the idea of this
closet; and she had hidden herself there, and, with her ear pressed
close against the crack of the door, had lost not a word of the
conversation.

When the voices died into silence, she rose and crept stealthily away.
Pale, shivering, with rigid features and compressed lips, she looked
an entirely altered being from the soft and timid creature she had been
hitherto. She moved cautiously along the entry, paused one moment at her
mistress' door, and raised her hands in mute appeal to Heaven, and then
turned and glided into her own room. It was a quiet, neat apartment,
on the same floor with her mistress. There was a pleasant sunny window,
where she had often sat singing at her sewing; there a little case of
books, and various little fancy articles, ranged by them, the gifts of
Christmas holidays; there was her simple wardrobe in the closet and in
the drawers:--here was, in short, her home; and, on the whole, a happy
one it had been to her. But there, on the bed, lay her slumbering boy,
his long curls falling negligently around his unconscious face, his rosy
mouth half open, his little fat hands thrown out over the bedclothes,
and a smile spread like a sunbeam over his whole face.

"Poor boy! poor fellow!" said Eliza; "they have sold you! but your
mother will save you yet!"

No tear dropped over that pillow; in such straits as these, the heart
has no tears to give,--it drops only blood, bleeding itself away in
silence. She took a piece of paper and a pencil, and wrote, hastily,

"O, Missis! dear Missis! don't think me ungrateful,--don't think hard of
me, any way,--I heard all you and master said tonight. I am going to try
to save my boy--you will not blame me! God bless and reward you for all
your kindness!"

Hastily folding and directing this, she went to a drawer and made up
a little package of clothing for her boy, which she tied with a
handkerchief firmly round her waist; and, so fond is a mother's
remembrance, that, even in the terrors of that hour, she did not forget
to put in the little package one or two of his favorite toys, reserving
a gayly painted parrot to amuse him, when she should be called on to
awaken him. It was some trouble to arouse the little sleeper; but, after
some effort, he sat up, and was playing with his bird, while his mother
was putting on her bonnet and shawl.

"Where are you going, mother?" said he, as she drew near the bed, with
his little coat and cap.

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