proachfully, "after my walking home from
meeting with you, and thinking and dreaming about you, as I have for this
long time, aint you going to marry me?"

"No, I aint," said Esther.

"Then I'll bid you good night; and look here, Esther, to-morrow, mistress
will lose one of her most valuable servants, for I shall hang myself."

Esther went up the steps, and shut the door on him, internally marvelling
at the impudence of men in general; Robert, with a strong inclination to
shed tears, turned his steps homeward. He told Mrs. Kent, the next morning,
that he had come to the conclusion not to be married for some time yet,
women were so troublesome, and there was no knowing how things would turn
out. Mrs. Kent saw he was much dejected, and concluded there were sour
grapes in the question.

After due consideration, Robert determined not to commit suicide; he did
something equally desperate. He married Mrs. Kent's maid, an ugly,
thick-lipped girl, who had hitherto been his especial aversion. He could
not though, entirely erase Esther's image from his heart--always feeling a
tendency to choke, when he heard her voice in meeting.

Esther told her mother of the offer she had had, and Phillis quite agreed
with her, in thinking Robert was crazy. She charged "Esther to know when
she was well off, and not to bring trouble upon herself by getting married,
or any such foolishness as that."

CHAPTER XII.

"I tell you what, Abel," said Arthur Weston, "the more I think about you
Northern people, the harder it is for me to come to a conclusion as to what
you are made of."

"Can't you experiment upon us, Arthur; test us chemically?"

"Don't believe you could be tested," said Arthur, "you are such a slippery
set. Now here is a book I have been looking over, called Annals of Salem,
by Joseph B. Felt, published in 1827. On the 109th page it says: 'Captain
Pierce, of the ship Desire, belonging to this port, was commissioned to
transport fifteen boys and one hundred women, of the captive Pequods, to
Bermuda, and sell them as slaves. He was obliged, however, to make for
Providence Island. There he disposed of the Indians. He returned from
Tortugas the 26th of February following, with a cargo of cotton, tobacco,
salt, and negroes.' In the edition of 1849, this interesting fact is
omitted. Now, was not that trading in human bodies and souls in earnest?
First they got all they could for those poor captive Pequods, and they
traded th