Chapter I


Miriam sat in her lowly cabin, painfully rocking her body to and fro;
for a great sorrow had fallen upon her life. She had been the mother of
three children, two had died in their infancy, and now her last, her
loved and only child was gone, but not like the rest, who had passed
away almost as soon as their little feet had touched the threshold of
existence. She had been entangled in the mazes of sin and sorrow; and
her sun had gone down in darkness. It was the old story. Agnes, fair,
young and beautiful, had been a slave, with no power to protect herself
from the highest insults that brutality could offer to innocence. Bound
hand and foot by that system, which has since gone down in wrath, and
blood, and tears, she had fallen a victim to the wiles and power of her
master; and the result was the introduction of a child of shame into a
world of sin and suffering; for herself an early grave; and for her
mother a desolate and breaking heart.

While Miriam was sitting down hopelessly beneath the shadow of her
mighty grief, gazing ever and anon on the pale dead face, which seemed
to bear in its sad but gentle expression, an appeal from earth to
heaven, some of the slaves would hurry in, and looking upon the fair
young face, would drop a word of pity for the weeping mother, and then
hurry on to their appointed tasks. All day long Miriam sat alone with
her dead, except when these kindly interruptions broke upon the monotony
of her sorrow.

In the afternoon, Camilla, the only daughter of her master, entered her
cabin, and throwing her arms around her neck exclaimed, "Oh! Mammy, I am
so sorry I didn't know Agnes was dead. I've been on a visit to Mr. Le