dn't hinder them from taking her.'

'How he must have felt!' I exclaimed.

She caught me up quickly. '_Felt!_ why, you know how a father _must_
feel in such a case. It broke him down worse than ever. Yes, we felt bad
enough when they carried Jane away. Well, she was bought by the
principal creditor; he was a rich man, with a large plantation, and a
wife and children, and lots of slaves, and he kept Jane at the house, to
sew for him, and by-and-by she had a child that was almost as white as
his other children. You see,' she added apologetically, 'Jane didn't
know it was wrong; she was only a poor sinner, who didn't know nothing.
She had never been to church or learned any thing, and I didn't know
much either _then_. It was only when I came North and joined the church,
that I began to know about such things. But I grieved day and night for
Jane, that I couldn't get her back. Well, for a time we were out of
debt, you see, and I persuaded my husband to come right up North, for
fear he should get into debt again, and they should seize the boy too;
so we came to Cincinnati, and we got the boy a place there, and he's
doing very well.

'There I joined the Church; but I couldn't help thinking of Jane, and
grieving after her all the time, and I prayed to the Lord for her, and I
prayed and prayed, and by-and-by, I don't know how it happened, but her
master let her bring the child and come and pay me a visit. It seemed as
if the Lord had blinded him, so that he did not know that if she came
North, she might be free. He was that stupid, he had not the least
suspicion that she'd stay; he thought she'd come right back to him. And
when she did not come, he wrote to her, and wrote again; and when still
she didn't come, he came himself to fetch her. But I took care to have
Jane out of the way, and saw him myself. And he coaxed and persuaded,
and he stormed and he threatened; oh! he was awful mad. But I jist shook
my fist in his face, and said, 'You ole slaveholder, you, you jist go
back to ole Virginny; you niver git my daughter agin!''

As she uttered these words, Sallie compressed her mouth with a look of
dogged resolution; her black eyes glowed with smothered anger, and she
shook her fist energetically in the air, as if the phantom of the
Virginian slaveholder were still before her. After a pause, she
recovered herself and continued:

'How he did go on! He cursed and he swore; but it was of no manner of
use; I'd nothin' else to s