t last said, "Sukey Larkin wanted Tommy, and I told
her she might have him; she'll take good care of him."

The unhappy bondwoman gazed at her with an expression of intense misery,
which she was never afterward able to forget. "O missis! how _could_ you
do it?" she exclaimed; and, sinking upon a chair, she covered her face
with her apron.

"Sukey will be good to him," said Mrs. Lawton, in tones more gentle than
usual.

"He'll cry for his mammy," sobbed Chloe. "O missis! 't was cruel to take
away my little Tommy."

The Widow crept noiselessly out of the room, and left her to wrestle
with her grief as she could. She found the minister in the sitting-room,
and told him she had given away little Tommy, but that she wouldn't have
done it if she had thought Chloe would be so wild about it; for she
doubted whether she should get any work out of her for a week to come.

"She'll get over it soon," said the minister. "My cow lowed dismally,
and wouldn't eat, when I sold her calf; but she soon got used to doing
without it."

It did not occur to him as included within his pastoral duties to pray
with the stricken slave; and poor Chloe, oppressed with an unutterable
sense of loneliness, retired to her straw pallet, and late in the night
sobbed herself to sleep. She woke with a weight on her heart, as if
there was somebody dead in the house; and quickly there rushed upon her
the remembrance that her darling was gone. A ragged gown of his was
hanging on a nail. How she kissed it, and cried over it! Then she took
Jim's pink shell from her box, folded them carefully together, and laid
them away. No mortal but herself knew what memories were wrapped up with
them. She went through the usual routine of housework like a laborer who
drags after him a ball and chain. At the appointed time, she wandered
forth to the beach with no little voice to chirp music to her as she
went. When she saw prints of Tommy's little feet in the sand, she sat
down on a stone, and covered her face with her apron. For a long time
her sobs and groans mingled with the moan of the sea. She raised her
head, and looked inland, in the direction where she supposed Sukey
Larkin lived. She revolved in her mind the possibility of going there.
But stages were almost unknown in those days; and no wagoner would take
her, without consent of her mistress, if she pleaded ever so hard. She
thought of running away at midnight; but Mrs. Lawton would be sure to
overtake her, an