Tom woke. Was it a dream? Let it pass for one. But who shall say that
that sweet young spirit, which in life so yearned to comfort and console
the distressed, was forbidden of God to assume this ministry after
death?

It is a beautiful belief,
That ever round our head
Are hovering, on angel wings,
The spirits of the dead.

CHAPTER XXXIII

Cassy

"And behold, the tears of such as were oppressed, and they had no
comforter; and on the side of their oppressors there was power, but they
had no comforter."--ECCL. 4:1

It took but a short time to familiarize Tom with all that was to be
hoped or feared in his new way of life. He was an expert and efficient
workman in whatever he undertook; and was, both from habit and
principle, prompt and faithful. Quiet and peaceable in his disposition,
he hoped, by unremitting diligence, to avert from himself at least a
portion of the evils of his condition. He saw enough of abuse and misery
to make him sick and weary; but he determined to toil on, with religious
patience, committing himself to Him that judgeth righteously, not
without hope that some way of escape might yet be opened to him.

Legree took a silent note of Tom's availability. He rated him as a
first-class hand; and yet he felt a secret dislike to him,--the native
antipathy of bad to good. He saw, plainly, that when, as was often the
case, his violence and brutality fell on the helpless, Tom took notice
of it; for, so subtle is the atmosphere of opinion, that it will make
itself felt, without words; and the opinion even of a slave may annoy
a master. Tom in various ways manifested a tenderness of feeling, a
commiseration for his fellow-sufferers, strange and new to them, which
was watched with a jealous eye by Legree. He had purchased Tom with a
view of eventually making him a sort of overseer, with whom he might,
at times, intrust his affairs, in short absences; and, in his view,
the first, second, and third requisite for that place, was _hardness_.
Legree made up his mind, that, as Tom was not hard to his hand, he
would harden him forthwith; and some few weeks after Tom had been on the
place, he determined to commence the process.

One morning, when the hands were mustered for the field, Tom noticed,
with surprise, a new comer among them, whose appearance excited his
attention. It was a woman, tall and slenderly formed, with remarkably
delicate hands and feet, and dressed in neat and re