Gone, gone, sold and gone
To the rice swamp dank and lone,
From Virginia hills and waters--
Woe is me, my stolen daughters!"

The hearth is desolate. The children, the unconscious children, who once
sang and danced in her presence, are gone. She gropes her way, in the
darkness of age, for a drink of water. Instead of the voices of her
children, she hears by day the moans of the dove, and by night the
screams of the hideous owl. All is gloom. The grave is at the door. And
now, when weighed down by the pains and aches of old age, when the head
inclines to the feet, when the beginning and ending of human existence
meet, and helpless infancy and painful old age combine together--at
this time, this most needful time, the time for the exercise of that
tenderness and affection which children only can exercise towards a
declining parent--my poor old grandmother, the devoted mother of twelve
children, is left all alone, in yonder little hut, before a few dim
embers. She stands--she sits--she staggers--she falls--she groans--she
dies--and there are none of her children or grandchildren present, to
wipe from her wrinkled brow the cold sweat of death, or to place beneath
the sod her fallen remains. Will not a righteous God visit for these
things?

In about two years after the death of Mrs. Lucretia, Master Thomas
married his second wife. Her name was Rowena Hamilton. She was the
eldest daughter of Mr. William Hamilton. Master now lived in St.
Michael's. Not long after his marriage, a misunderstanding took place
between himself and Master Hugh; and as a means of punishing his
brother, he took me from him to live with himself at St. Michael's. Here
I underwent another most painful separation. It, however, was not so