looks, and gestures, that made it pathetic;
of course she did not know whither or to whom her _real_ husband had been
sold; but in the meantime Mr. K----, that merciful Providence of the
estate, had provided her with the above-named Tony, by whom she had had
nine children, six of whom were dead; she, too, had miscarried twice. She
came to ask me for some flannel for her legs, which are all swollen with
constant rheumatism, and to beg me to give her something to cure some bad
sores and ulcers, which seemed to me dreadful enough in their present
condition, but which she said break out afresh and are twice as bad every
summer.

I have let my letter lie since the day before yesterday, dear E----,
having had no leisure to finish it. Yesterday morning I rode out to St.
Clair's, where there used formerly to be another negro settlement and
another house of Major ----'s. I had been persuaded to try one of the
mares I had formerly told you of, and to be sure a more 'curst' quadruped,
and one more worthy of a Petruchio for a rider I did never back. Her
temper was furious, her gait intolerable, her mouth, the most obdurate
that ever tugged against bit and bridle. It is not wise anywhere--here it
is less wise than anywhere else in the world--to say 'Jamais de cette eau
je ne boirai;' but I _think_ I will never ride that delightful creature
Miss Kate again.

I wrote you of my having been to a part of the estate called St. Clair's,
where there was formerly another residence of Major ----'s; nothing
remains now of it but a ruined chimney of some of the offices, which is
standing yet in the middle of what has become a perfect wilderness. At the
best of times, with a large house, numerous household, and paths, and
drives of approach, and the usual external conditions of civilisation
about it, a residence here would have been the loneliest that can well be
imagined; now it is the shaggiest desert of beautiful wood that I ever
saw. The magnificent old oaks stand round the place in silent solemn
grandeur; and among them I had no difficulty in recognising, by the
description Captain F---- had given me of it, the crumbling shattered
relic of a tree called Oglethorpe's oak. That worthy valiant old governor
had a residence here himself in the early days of the colony; when, under
the influence of Wesley, he vainly made such strenuous efforts to keep
aloof from his infant province the sore curse of slavery.

I rode almost the whole way through