t form. Her gown, which was
very short, was of flaming red and yellow worsted stuff, and the
enormous turban that graced her head and hid all but a few tufts of her
frizzled, 'pepper-and-salt' locks, was evidently a contribution from the
family stock of worn-out pillow-cases. She was very aged,--upwards of
seventy,--and so thin that, had she not been endowed with speech and
motion, she might have passed for a bundle of whalebone thrown into
human shape, and covered with a coating of gutta-percha. It was evident
she had been a valued house-servant, whose few remaining years were
being soothed and solaced by the kind and indulgent care of a grateful
master.

Scip, I soon saw, was a favorite with the old-negress, and the marked
respect he showed me quickly dispelled the angry feeling excited by my
doubts of 'Massa Davy,' and opened her heart and her mouth at the same
moment. She was terribly garrulous; her tongue, as soon as it got under
way, ran on as if propelled by machinery and acquainted with the secret
of perpetual motion; but she was an interesting study. The
single-hearted attachment she showed for her master and his family gave
me a new insight into the practical working of 'the peculiar
institution,' and convinced me that even slavery, in some of its
aspects, is not so black as it is painted.

When we were seated, I said to Scip, 'What induced you to lay hands on
the Colonel? It is death, you know, if he enforces the law.'

'I knows dat, massa; I knows dat; but I had to do it. Dat Moye am de ole
debil, but de folks round har wud hab turned on de Cunnel, shore, ef
he'd killed him. Dey don't like de Cunnel; dey say he'm a stuck-up
seshener.'

'The Colonel, then, has befriended you at some time?'

'No, no, sar; 'twarn't dat; dough I'se know'd him a long w'ile,--eber
sense my ole massa fotched me from de Habana,--but 'twarn't dat.'

'Then _why_ did you do it?'

The black hesitated a moment, and glanced at the old negress, then
said,--

'You see, massa, w'en I fuss come to Charles'n, a pore little ting, wid
no friend in all de worle, dis ole aunty war a mudder to me. She nussed
de Cunnel; he am jess like her own chile, and I know'd 'twud kill her ef
he got hisself enter trubble.'

I noticed certain convulsive twitchings about the corners of the old
woman's mouth as she rose from her seat, threw her arms around Scip,
and, in words broken by sobs, faltered out,--

'_You_ am my chile; I loves you better dan