Dumont, who had been born and educated in a non-slaveholding family,
and, like many others, used only to work-people, who, under the most
stimulating of human motives, were willing to put forth their every
energy, could not have patience with the creeping gait, the dull
understanding, or see any cause for the listless manners and careless,
slovenly habits of the poor down-trodden outcast-entirely forgetting
that every high and efficient motive had been removed far from him; and
that, had not his very intellect been crushed out of him, the slave
would find little ground for aught but hopeless despondency. From this
source arose a long series of trials in the life of our heroine, which
we must pass over in silence; some from motives of delicacy, and
others, because the relation of them might inflict undeserved pain on
some now living, whom Isabel remembers only with esteem and love;
therefore, the reader will not be surprised if our narrative appears
somewhat tame at this point, and may rest assured that it is not for
want of facts, as the most thrilling incidents of this portion of her
life are from various motives suppressed.


One comparatively trifling incident she wishes related, as it made a
deep impression on her mind at the time-showing, as she thinks, how God
shields the innocent, and causes them to triumph over their enemies,
and also how she stood between master and mistress. In her family,
Mrs. Dumont employed two white girls, one of whom, named Kate, evinced
a disposition to 'lord it over' Isabel, and, in her emphatic language,
'to grind her down '. Her master often shielded her from the attacks
and accusations of others, praising her for her readiness and ability
to work, and these praises seemed to foster a spirit of hostility to
her, in the minds of Mrs. Dumont and her white servant, the latter of
whom took every opportunity to cry up her faults, lessen her in the