fe. Tears would fill the servants' eyes as they saw the dear
child drifting from them like a lovely vision, too bright for earth's
dull cares and weary, wasting pain.

CHAPTER XII.

SCHOOL-GIRL NOTIONS.

During Iola's stay in the North she found a strong tide of opposition
against slavery. Arguments against the institution had entered the
Church and made legislative halls the arenas of fierce debate. The
subject had become part of the social converse of the fireside, and had
enlisted the best brain and heart of the country. Anti-slavery
discussions were pervading the strongest literature and claiming, a
place on the most popular platforms.

Iola, being a Southern girl and a slave-holder's daughter, always
defended slavery when it was under discussion.

"Slavery can't be wrong," she would say, "for my father is a
slave-holder, and my mother is as good to our servants as she can be. My
father often tells her that she spoils them, and lets them run over her.
I never saw my father strike one of them. I love my mammy as much as I
do my own mother, and I believe she loves us just as if we were her own
children. When we are sick I am sure that she could not do anything more
for us than she does."

"But, Iola," responded one of her school friends, "after all, they are
not free. Would you be satisfied to have the most beautiful home, the
costliest jewels, or the most elegant wardrobe if you were a slave?"

"Oh, the cases are not parallel. Our slaves do not want their freedom.
They would not take it if we gave it to them."

"That is not the case with them all. My father has seen men who have
encountered almost incredible hardships to get their freedom. Iola, did
you ever attend an anti-slavery meeting?"

"No; I don't think these Abolitionists have any right to meddle in our
affairs. I believe they are prejudiced against us, and want to get our
property. I read about them in the papers when I was at home. I don't
want to hear my part of the country run down. My father says the slaves
would be very well contented if no one put wrong notions in their
heads."

"I don't know," was the response of her friend, "but I do not think that
that slave mother who took her four children, crossed the Ohio River on
the ice, killed one of the children and attempted the lives of the other
two, was a contented slave. And that other one, who, running away and
finding herself pursued, threw herself over the Long Bridge into the
Po