me, we would rather have endured it, than not have seen
oranges, green peas, and red pepper, growing in the open air at
Christmas. In one of our rambles we ventured to enter a garden,
whose bright orange hedge attracted our attention; here we saw
green peas fit for the table, and a fine crop of red pepper
ripening in the sun. A young Negress was employed on the steps
of the house; that she was a slave made her an object of interest
to us. She was the first slave we had ever spoken to, and I
believe we all felt that we could hardly address her with
sufficient gentleness. She little dreamed, poor girl, what deep
sympathy she excited; she answered us civilly and gaily, and
seemed amused at our fancying there was something unusual in red
pepper pods; she gave us several of them, and I felt fearful lest
a hard mistress might blame her for it. How very childish does
ignorance make us! and how very ignorant we are upon almost every
subject, where hearsay evidence is all we can get!

I left England with feelings so strongly opposed to slavery, that
it was not without pain I witnessed its effects around me. At
the sight of every Negro man, woman, and child that passed, my
fancy wove some little romance of misery, as belonging to each of
them; since I have known more on the subject, and become better
acquainted with their real situation in America, I have often
smiled at recalling what I then felt.

The first symptom of American equality that I perceived, was
my being introduced in form to a milliner; it was not at a
boarding-house, under the indistinct outline of "Miss C--," nor
in the street through the veil of a fashionable toilette, but in
the very penetralia of her temple, standing behind her counter,
giving laws to ribbon and to wire, and ushering caps and bonnets
into existence. She was an English woman, and I was told that
she possessed great intellectual endowments, and much
information; I really believe this was true. Her manner was easy
and graceful, with a good deal of French tournure; and the
gentleness with which her fine eyes and sweet voice directed the
movements of a young female slave, was really touching: the way,
too, in which she blended her French talk of modes with her
customers, and her English talk of metaphysics with her friends,
had a pretty air of indifference in it, that gave her a
superiority with both.

I found with her the daughter of a judge, eminent, it was said,
both for legal and