in the preceding chapters?

Tidy often saw her mother. Miss Lee used to visit Mr. Carroll's family,
and never went without taking Tidy, that the child and her mother
might have a good time together. And good times indeed they were.

When Annie learned that her baby had been taken to Rosevale,
that she was so well cared for, and that they would be able sometimes
to see one another, her grief was very much abated, and she began
to think in what new ways she could show her love for her little one.
She saved all the money she could get; and, as she had opportunity,
she would buy a bit of gay calico, to make the child a frock or an apron.
Mothers, you perceive, are all alike, from the days of Hannah,
who made a "little coat" for her son Samuel, and "brought it
to him from year to year, when she came up with her husband to the
yearly sacrifice," down to the present time. Nothing pleases them
more than to provide things useful and pretty for their little ones.
Even this slave-mother, with her scanty means, felt this same longing.
It did her heart good to be doing something for her child;
and so she was constantly planning and preparing for these visits,
that she might never be without something new and gratifying
to give her. In the warm days of summer, she would take her down
to Sweet-Brier Pond, a pretty pool of water right in the heart
of a sweet pine grove, a little way from the house, and Tidy would
have a good splashing frolic in the water, and come out looking
as bright and shining as a newly-polished piece of mahogany.
Her mother would press the water from her dripping locks, and turn
the soft, glossy hair in short, smooth curls over her fingers,
put on the new frock, and then set her out before her admiring eyes,
and exclaim in her fond motherly pride,--