Eliza was sitting in the next room. The door was not quite closed, so
she could not help hearing what was said. As she listened she grew pale
and cold and a terrible look of pain came into her face.

Eliza had had three dear little children, but two of them had died when
they were tiny babies. She loved and cared for Harry all the more
because she had lost the others. Now he was to be taken from her and
sold to cruel men, and she would never see him again. She felt she could
not bear it.

Eliza's husband was called George, and was a slave too. He did not
belong to Mr. Shelby, but to another man, who had a farm quite near.
George and Eliza could not live together as a husband and wife generally
do. Indeed, they hardly ever saw each other. George's master was a cruel
man, and would not let him come to see his wife. He was so cruel, and
beat George so dreadfully, that the poor slave made up his mind to run
away. He had come that very day to tell Eliza what he meant to do.

As soon as Mr. and Mrs. Shelby stopped talking, Eliza crept away to her
own room, where little Harry was sleeping. There he lay with his pretty
curls around his face. His rosy mouth was half open, his fat little
hands thrown out over the bed-clothes, and a smile like a sunbeam upon
his face.

'My baby, my sweet-one,' said Eliza, 'they have sold you. But mother
will save you yet!'

She did not cry. She was too sad and sorrowful for that. Taking a piece
of paper and a pencil, she wrote quickly.