ome tender memories of my good old grandmother, like light,
fleecy clouds floating over a dark and troubled sea.

APPENDIX.

The following statement is from Amy Post, a member of the Society of
Friends in the State of New York, well known and highly respected by
friends of the poor and the oppressed. As has been already stated, in the
preceding pages, the author of this volume spent some time under her
hospitable roof.

L.M.C.

The author of this book is my highly-esteemed friend. If its
readers knew her as I know her, they could not fail to be deeply
interested in her story. She was a beloved inmate of our family
nearly the whole of the year 1849. She was introduced to us by
her affectionate and conscientious brother, who had previously
related to us some of the almost incredible events in his
sister's life. I immediately became much interested in Linda; for
her appearance was prepossessing, and her deportment indicated
remarkable delicacy of feeling and purity of thought.

As we became acquainted, she related to me, from time to time
some of the incidents in her bitter experiences as a slave-woman.
Though impelled by a natural craving for human sympathy, she
passed through a baptism of suffering, even in recounting her
trials to me, in private confidential conversations. The burden
of these memories lay heavily upon her spirit--naturally virtuous
and refined. I repeatedly urged her to consent to the publication
of her narrative; for I felt that it would arouse people to a
more earnest work for the disinthralment of millions still
remaining in that soul-crushing condition, which was so
unendurable to her. But her sensitive spirit shrank from
publicity. She said, "You know a woman can whisper her cruel
wrongs in the ear of a dear friend much easier than she can
record them for the world to read." Even in talking with me, she
wept so much, and seemed to suffer such mental agony, that I felt
her story was too sacred to be drawn from her by inquisitive
questions, and I left her free to tell as much, or as little, as
she chose. Still, I urged upon her the duty of publishing her
experience, for the sake of the good it might do; and, at last,
she undertook the task.

Having been a slave so large a portion of her life, she is
unlearned; she is obliged to earn her living by her own labor,
and she has worked untiringl