156

FIRST WORDS OF HOPE.

"Don't know nothin' 'bout that,' said the woman; nobody han't never loved me, since my old man died."

"Where was you raised?" said Tom.

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Up in Kentuck. A man kept me to breed chil'en for market, and sold 'em as fast as they got big enough; last of all, he sold me to a speculator, and my master got me o' him."

"What set you into this bad way of drinkin' ?"

"To get shet o' my misery. I had one child after I come here; and I thought then I'd have one to raise, cause mas'r wasn't a speculator. It was the peartest little thing; and missis she seemed to think a heap on't at first; it never cried-it was likely and fat. But missis tuck sick, and I tended her; and I tuck the fever, and my milk all left me, and the child it pined to skin and bone, and missis wouldn't buy milk for it. She wouldn't hear to me, when I telled her I hadn't milk. She said she knowed I could feed it on what other folks eat; and the child kinder pined and cried, and cried, and cried, day and night, and got all gone to skin and bones, and missis got sot agin it, and she said 'twarn't nothin' but crossness. She wished it was dead, she said; and she wouldn't let me have it o' nights, cause, she said, it kept me awake, and made me good for nothing. She made me sleep in her room; and I had to put it a way off in a little kind o' garret, and thar it cried itself to death, one night. It did; and I tuck to drinkin', to keep its crying out of my ears! I did and I will drink! I will, if I do go to torment for it! Mas'r says I shall go to torment, and I tell him I've got thar now!"

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"O ye poor crittur!" said Tom, han't nobody never telled ye how the Lord Jesus loved ye, and died for ye? Han't they telled ye that He'll help ye, and ye can go to heaven, and have rest, at last ?"

"I looks like gwine to heaven," said the woman; "an't thar where white folks is gwine? S'pose they'd have me thar? I'd rather go to torment, and get away from mas'r and missis. I had so," she said, as, with her usual groan, she got her basket on her head, and walked sullenly away.

Tom turned, and walked sorrowfully back to the house. In the court he met little Eva-a crown of tuberoses on her head, and her eyes radiant with delight.

"O Tom! here you are. I'm glad I've found you. Papa says you may get out the ponies and take me in my little new carriage," she said, catching his hand. "But what's the matter, Tom ?-you look sober." "I feel bad, Miss Eva," said Tom, sorrowfully. "But I'll get the horses for you."

"But do tell me, Tom, what is the matter. I saw you talking to cross old Prue."

Tom, in simple, earnest phrase, told Eva the woman's history. She did not exclaim, or wonder, or weep, as other children do. Her cheeks grew pale, and a deep, earnest shadow passed over her eyes. She laid both hands on her bosom, and sighed heavily.

DEATH OF DRUNKEN PRUE

157

CH. XIX.-MISS OPHELIA'S EXPERIENCES AND OPINIONS, CON

TINUED.

"Toм, you needn't get me the horses. I don't want to go," she said. Why not, Miss Eva?"

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"These things sink into my heart, Tom," said Eva; "they sink inte my heart," she repeated earnestly. "I don't want to go;" and she turned from Tom, and went into the house.

A few days after another woman came, in old Prue's place, to bring tne rusks; Miss Ophelia was in the kitchen.

"Lor!" said Dinah," what's got Prue?"

"Prue isn't comin' any more," said the woman, mysteriously.

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Why not?" said Dinah," she an't dead, is she?"

"We doesn't exactly know. She's down cellar," said the woman, glancing at Miss Ophelia.

After Miss Ophelia had taken the rusks, Dinah followed the woman to the door.

"What has got Prue, anyhow?" she said.

The woman seemed desirous yet reluctant to speak, and answered in a low, mysterious tone,

"Well, you mustn't tell nobody. Prue, she got drunk agin-and they had her down cellar--and thar they left her all day; and I hearn' em saying that the flies had got to her-and she's dead!"

Dinah held up her hands, and, turning, saw close by her side the spirit-like form of Evangeline, her large, mystic eyes dilated with horror, and every drop of blood driven from her lips and cheeks.

"Lor bless us Miss Eva's gwine to faint away! What got us all. to let her har such talk? Her pa'll be rail mad."

"I shan't faint, Dinah," said the child, firmly; "and why shouldn't I hear it? It an't so much for me to hear it as for poor Prue to suffer it."

"Lor sakes! it isn't for sweet delicate young ladies like you-these yer stories isn't; it's enough to kill 'em!"

Eva sighed again, and walked up stairs with a slow and melancholy step.

Miss Ophelia anxiously inquired the woman's story. Dinah gave a very garrulous version of it, to which Tom added the particulars which he had drawn from her on that morning.

"An abominable business-perfectly horrible!" she exclaimed, as she entered the room where St. Clare lay, reading his paper.

"Pray, what iniquity has turned up now?" said he.

"What now? why those folks have whipped Prue to death!" said Miss Ophelia, going on, with great strength of detail, into the story, and enlarging on its most shocking particulars.

"I thought it would come to that some time," said St. Clare, going on with his paper.

"Thought so!-an't you going to do anything about it?" said Miss Ophelia. "Haven't got any selectmen, or anybody to interfere and look after such matters?"

"It's commonly supposed that the property interest is a sufficient guard in these cases. If people choose to ruin their own possessions,

158

MISS OPHELIA'S INDIGNATION.

don't know what's to be done. It seems the poor creature was a thiei and a drunkard; and so there won't be much hope to get up sympathy for her."

"It is perfectly outrageous-it is horrid, Augustine! It will certainly bring down vengeance upon you."

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My dear cousin, I didn't do it, and I can't help it; I would, if I could. If low-minded, brutal people, will act like themselves, what am I to do? They have absolute control; they are irresponsible despots. There would be no use in interfering; there is no law that amounts to anything practically for such a case. The best we can do is to shut our eyes and ears, and let it alone. It's the only resource left us."

"How can you shut your eyes and ears? How can you let such things alone?"

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My dear child, what do you expect? Here is a whole class-de based, uneducated, indolent, provoking-put, without any sort of terms or conditions, entirely into the hands of such people as the majority in our world are; people who have neither consideration nor self-control, who haven't even an enlightened regard to their own interest-for that's the case with the largest half of mankind. Of course, in a community so organised, what can a man of honourable and humane feelings do, but shut his eyes all he can, and harden his heart? I can't buy every poor wretch I see. I can't turn knight-errant, and undertake to redress every individual case of wrong in such a city as this. The most I can do is to try and keep out of the way of it."

St. Clare's fine countenance was for a moment overcast; he looked annoyed: but, suddenly calling up a gay smile, he said—

"Come cousin, don't stand there looking like one of the Fates; you've only seen a peep through the curtain-a specimen of what is going on the world over, in some shape or other. If we are to be prying and spying into all the dismals of life, we should have no heart to anything. 'Tis like looking too close into the details of Dinah's kitchen;" and St. Clare lay back on the sofa and busied himself with his paper.

Miss Ophelia sat down and pulled out her knitting-work, and sat there, grim with indignation. She knit and knit; but while she mused the fire burned. At last she broke out

"I teel you, Augustine, I can't get over things so, if you can. It's a perfect abomination for you to defend such a system—that's my mind!” "What now?" said St. Clare, looking up. "At it again, eh?"

"I say it's perfectly abominable for you to defend such a system!" said Miss Ophelia, with increasing warmth.

"I defend it, my dear lady? Who ever said I did defend it?" said St. Clare.

"Of course you defend it-you all do-all you Southerners. do you have slaves for, if you don't?"

What

"Are you such a sweet innocent as to suppose nobody in this world ever does what they don't think is right? Don't you, or didn't you ever, do anything that you did not think quite right?"

"If I do I repent of it, I hope," said Miss Ophelia, rattling her needles with energy.

"So do I," said St. Clare, peeling his orange; "I'm repenting of it

all the time."

"What do you keep on doing it for?