brutality of Mrs. Miller, much less the combined ferociousness of tho old woman and the overseer too. Suffice it to say, that instead of whipping Isabella, Mrs. Miller transferred her to the negro-speculator, who took her immediately to his slave-pen. The unfeeling old woman would not permit Isabella to take more than a single change of her clothing, remarking to Jennings,—
"I sold you the wench, you know,—not her clothes."
The injured, friendless, and unprotected Isabella fainted as she saw her child struggling to release herself from the arms of old Mrs. Miller, and as the wretch boxed the poor child's ears.
After leaving directions as to how Isabella's furniture and other effects should be disposed of, Mrs. Miller took Clotelle into her carriage and drove home. There was not even color enough about the child to make it appear that a single drop of African blood flowed through its blue veins.
Considerable sensation was created in the kitchen among the servants when the carriage drove up, and Clotelle entered the house.
"Jes' like Massa Henry fur all de worl'," said Dinah, as she caught a glimpse of the child through the window.
"Wondah whose brat dat ar' dat missis bringin' home wid her?" said Jane, as she put the ice in the pitchers for dinner. "I warrant it's some poor white nigger somebody bin givin' her."
The child was white. What should be done to make it look like other negroes, was the question which Mrs. Miller asked herself. The callous-hearted old woman bit her nether lip, as she viewed that child, standing before her, with her long, dark ringlets clustering over her alabaster brow and neck.
"Take this little nigger and cut her hair close to her head," said the mistress to Jane, as the latter answered the bell.
Clotelle screamed, as she felt the scissors grating over her head, and saw those curls that her mother thought so much of falling upon the floor.
A roar of laughter burst from the servants, as Jane led the child through the kitchen, with the hair cut so short that the naked scalp could be plainly seen.
"'Gins to look like nigger, now," said Dinah, with her mouth upon a grin.
The mistress smiled, as the shorn child reëntered the room; but there was something more needed. The child was white, and that was a great objection. However, she hit upon a plan to remedy this which seemed feasible. The day was excessively warm. Not a single cloud floated over the blue vault of heaven; not a breath of wind seemed moving, and the earth was parched by the broiling sun. Even the bees had
