, is not that young woman white?" inquired the parson.

"Oh, no, sir; she is no whiter than you see!"

"But is she a slave?" asked the preacher.

"Yes," said the trader, "I bought her in Richmond, and she comes from
an excellent family. She was raised by Squire Miller, and her mistress
was one of the most pious ladies in that city, I may say; she was the
salt of the earth, as the ministers say."

"But she resembles in some respect Agnes, the woman I bought from you,"
said Mr. Wilson. As he said the name of Agnes, the young woman started
as if she had been struck. Her pulse seemed to quicken, but her face
alternately flushed and turned pale, and tears trembled upon her
eyelids. It was a name she had heard her mother mention, and it brought
to her memory those days,--those happy days, when she was so loved and
caressed. This young woman was Clotelle, the granddaughter of Agnes.
The preacher, on learning the fact, purchased her, and took her home,
feeling that his daughter Georgiana would prize her very highly.
Clotelle found in Georgiana more a sister than a mistress, who, unknown
to her father, taught the slave-girl how to read, and did much toward
improving and refining Clotelle's manners, for her own sake. Like her
mother fond of flowers, the "Virginia Maid," as she was sometimes
called, spent many of her leisure hours in the garden. Beside the
flowers which sprang up from the fertility of soil unplanted and
unattended, there was the heliotrope, sweet-pea, and cup-rose,
transplanted from the island of Cuba. In her new home Clotelle found
herself saluted on all sides by the fragrance of the magnolia. When she
went with her young mistress to the Poplar Farm, as she sometimes did,
nature's wild luxuriance greeted her, wherever she cast her eyes.

The rustling citron, lime, and orange, shady mango with its fruits of
gold, and the palmetto's umbrageous beauty, all welcomed the child of
sorrow. When at the farm, Huckelby, the overseer, kept his eye on
Clotelle if within sight of her, for he knew she was a slave, and no
doubt hoped that she might some day fall into his hands. But she shrank
from his looks as she would have done from the charm of the
rattlesnake. The negro-driver always tried to insinuate himself into
the good opinion of Georgiana and the company that she brought. Knowing
that Miss Wilson at heart hated slavery, he was ever trying to show
that the slaves under his charge were happy and contented. One day,