believed that slavery was right and honorable. Yet she now sees
very clearly the false position they were all in, both masters and
slaves; and she looks back, with utter astonishment, at the absurdity
of the claims so arrogantly set up by the masters, over
beings designed by God to be as free as kings; and at the perfect
stupidity of the slave, in admitting for one moment the validity
of these claims.

In obedience to her mother's instructions, she had educated
herself to such a sense of honesty, that, when she had become a
mother, she would sometimes whip her child when it cried to
her for bread, rather than give it a piece secretly, lest it should
learn to take what was not its own! And the writer of this knows,
from personal observation, that the slaveholders of the South feel
it to be a religious duty to teach their slaves to be honest, and
never to take what is not their own! Oh consistency, art thou not
a jewel? Yet Isabella glories in the fact that she was faithful and
true to her master; she says, 'It made me true to my God'-meaning,
that it helped to form in her a character that loved
truth, and hated a lie, and had saved her from the bitter pains
and fears that are sure to follow in the wake of insincerity and
hypocrisy.

As she advanced in years, an attachment sprung up between
herself and a slave named Robert. But his master, an Englishman
by the name of Catlin, anxious that no one's property but his
own should be enhanced by the increase of his slaves, forbade
Robert's visits to Isabella, and commanded him to take a wife
among his fellow-servants. Notwithstanding this interdiction,
Robert, following the bent of his inclinations, continued his