ervility of a slave,
usually so acceptable a quality to the haughty slaveholder, was not
understood nor desired by this gentle woman. So far from deeming
it impudent in a slave to look her straight in the face, as some
slaveholding ladies do, she seemed ever to say, "look up, child; don't
be afraid; see, I am full of kindness and good will toward you." The
hands belonging to Col. Lloyd's sloop, esteemed it a great privilege to
be the bearers of parcels or messages to my new mistress; for whenever
they came, they were sure of a most kind and pleasant reception. If
little Thomas was her son, and her most dearly beloved child, she, for
a time, at least, made me something like his half-brother in her
affections. If dear Tommy was exalted to a place on his mother's knee,
"Feddy" was honored by a place at his mother's side. Nor did he lack
the caressing strokes of her gentle hand, to convince him that, though
_motherless_, he was not _friendless_. Mrs. Auld{112} was not only
a kind-hearted woman, but she was remarkably pious; frequent in her
attendance of public worship, much given to reading the bible, and to
chanting hymns of praise, when alone. Mr. Hugh Auld was altogether a
different character. He cared very little about religion, knew more
of the world, and was more of the world, than his wife. He set out,
doubtless to be--as the world goes--a respectable man, and to get on by
becoming a successful ship builder, in that city of ship building. This
was his ambition, and it fully occupied him. I was, of course, of very
little consequence to him, compared with what I was to good Mrs. Auld;
and, when he smiled upon me, as he sometimes did, the smile was borrowed
from his lovely wife, and, like all borrowed light, was transient,
and vanished with the source whence it was derived. While I must
characterize Master Hugh as being a very sour man, and of forbidding
appearance, it is due to him to acknowledge, that he was never very
cruel to me, according to the notion of cruelty in Maryland. The first
year or two which I spent in his house, he left me almost exclusively to
the management of his wife. She was my law-giver. In hands so tender as
hers, and in the absence of the cruelties of the plantation, I became,
both physically and mentally, much more sensitive to good and ill
treatment; and, perhaps, suffered more from a frown from my mistress,
than I formerly did from a cuff at the hands of Aunt Katy. Instead
of the cold, damp f