Eliza up the river's bank, showed her a pretty white house at some
distance, where a kind gentleman and his wife lived. The dark night had
fallen, the tea-cups were on the table, and the fires were bright in
kitchen and parlour, when the poor mother, all wet and weary, her feet
cut by the sharp ice (for she had lost her shoes in the river), walked
in, with Harry still in her arms. Before she could ask for shelter, she
dropped down fainting on the floor. The good people of the house
thought she was dead, and raised a terrible alarm. Mr. and Mrs. Bird ran
into the kitchen to see what had happened. They were good, kind people,
and great in that place, for Mr. Bird was a member of the American
Parliament. He kept slaves himself, and tried to think it was no sin. He
had even been trying that very night, in conversation with his wife, to
defend a law lately passed, which forbade any one to give shelter to
poor runaway slaves. But Mrs. Bird would listen to no defence of such a
law, and said, "It is a shameful, wicked, and abominable law, and I'll
break it for one the first time I have a chance, and I hope I shall have
a chance too. I know nothing about politics, but I can read my Bible,
and there I see that I must feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and
comfort the desolate; and that Bible I mean to follow. No, no, John,
said she, you may talk all night, but you would not do what you say.
Would you now turn away a poor, shivering, hungry creature from your
door because he was a runaway? Would you, now?"

Now, if the truth must be told, Mr. Bird was a very kind man, and could
not in his heart give a very decided reply to his wife; and it was just
at this moment that poor Eliza and little Harry came to his door. As we
said, Mr. and Mrs. Bird ran to the kitchen to see what had happened.
They found poor Eliza just recovering from her faint. She stared wildly
round her for a moment, and then sprang to her feet, saying, "Oh! my
Harry! have you got him?" The boy at this ran to her, and put his arms
round her neck. "Oh! he's here, he's here!" she exclaimed. And then she
cried wildly to Mrs. Bird, "O, ma'am, do protect us, don't let them get
him!"

"Nobody shall hurt you here, poor woman," said Mrs. Bird. "You are safe;
don't be afraid."

"God bless you," said the woman, covering her face and sobbing, while
poor little Harry, seeing her crying, tried to get into her lap.

With many gentle and womanly offices which no one knew bette