Chapter V


Before I proceed any further with my story, let me tell the reader
something of the Le Granges, whom I have so unceremoniously introduced.

Le Grange, like Le Croix, was of French and Spanish descent, and his
father had also been a Haytian refugee. But there the similitude ends;
unlike Le Croix, he had grown up a gay and reckless young man, fond of
sports, and living an aimless life.

His father had on his plantation a beautiful quadroon girl, named Ellen,
whom he had bought in Richmond because she begged him to buy her when he
had bought her mother, who had been recommended to him as a first-rate
cook. They had been servants in what was called one of the first
families of Virginia, and had been treated by their mistress with more
kindness and consideration than generally fell to the lot of persons in
their condition. As long as she lived, they had been well fed and well
clothed, and except the deprivation of their freedom, had known but few
of the hardships so incident to slave life; but a reverse had fallen
upon them.

Their mistress had intended to set them free, but, dying suddenly, she
had failed to carry out her intention. Her property fell into the hands
of distant heirs, who sold it all, and divided it among themselves.
Ellen and her mother were put up at auction, when a kindly looking old
Frenchman bought the mother. Ellen stood trembling by; but, when she saw
her mother's new master, she started forth, and kneeling at his feet,