h of
English brick, the Episcopalian, covered with ivy, and the Presbyterian,
which had given its name to the first synod of the Kirk in the new
world, and now stood, surrounded with gravestones, where the visitor
might read Scottish names left to orphans at Worcester, as yonder at the
Episcopate graveyard, names left to English orphans in the same rolling
tide of blood; and Worcester was the name of the county, as the court
and jail might tell.

Hidden in the sand, like Benjamin's cup in the bag of flinty corn, a
golden lustre yet seemed to betray Snow Hill, as the sun rose into its
old trees, and woke the liquid-throated birds, and finally made the old
brick and older whitewashed houses gleam, and exhale a soft, blue smoke.
Virgie heard a sound as of hoofs upon a bridge, and saw, across the
lily-bordered river, the Custis carriage winding up a golden road.

"Alone!" said Virgie; "love has gone. Now I must live for freedom."

"Breakfast, Miss," spoke a neat, kind-faced, yet ready woman, of
Virgie's own size and color; "my husband is going to drive you out of
town before any of the white people are up to see you."

At the table was a mulatto man, whom the woman introduced as her
husband.

"Mrs. Hudson," Virgie said, "you are doing so much for me! may the good
Lord pay you back!"

"Oh, no," replied the woman, "I am always up at this hour. I work hard,
because I am trying to buy my mother, who is still a slave."

"How came you free?" Virgie asked, wistfully.

"I saved a sick gentleman's life, and he bought me for it, and gave me
my freedom. See, I have a pass that tells the color of my eyes and skin,
my weight, and everything. With this I can go into Delaware and the free
states. I wish you had one, Miss Virgie."

"Oh, Mrs. Hudson, I dearly wish I had. Let me read it. Why, I could
almost pass for you, from this description."

"Indeed you could," the housewife said; "we are not of the same age, but
white people don't read a pass very careful."

"How I would love anybody that could get me such a pass!"

"I have given my word of honor that I will never lend it. Much as I like
to help my color to freedom, I cannot break my word. To-morrow I have to
go into Delaware with my pass to nurse a lady."

"You attend the sick, Mrs. Hudson?"

"Yes, I have a kind of call that way, Miss Virgie. Ever since I was a
girl I pulled herbs and tried them on myself, and studied 'tendin' on
people, watchin' their minds, that is s