sedative in reconciling them to their fate, according to their own confession; and after smoking for a few moments, gave her brief narrative, only relating its most striking points.
"I was raised in old Virginny, but I won't give the first particulars of my life, which you will be soon enough to find out, but honey, I wish you'd smoke a pipe, it would make you feel so much better, it does me so much good when I have a trouble. I was about sixteen when my old master brought us here with the rest of his things, about sixty head of us in all, mostly field-hands, but I had a sister a little older, a house servant, who was married to my master's coachman, and they had one child. A slave trader came one day and wanted to buy her, offerin' a right smart price, but he didn't want the child. My master would not consent to separate 'em at first for she was a pretty creetur and so was the child, but he wanted the money, and the bargain was made. To do the thing up as quiet as possible, the child was sent off to a neighboring plantation on some pretence, when she was told to get ready as quick as she could. Such screeches as she made frightened me and I tried to beg her off. We had both been treated well, and as I was very near of kin I felt sure he would listen to me. All the answer I got was that he would sell me too if I didn't shut up. So with a crack of the driver's whip she was hurried into the cart and I never see her again. Her husband took on mighty bad that night when he come to be alone, and when the child came home, and asked so mournfully for his mother every few min-
