who had any claim upon his heart. To behold one thus playing upon
the feelings of two lovely women is enough to make us feel that evil
must at last bring its own punishment.

Henry and Gertrude had scarcely risen from the breakfast-table next
morning ere old Mrs. Miller made her appearance. She immediately took
her daughter aside, and informed her of her previous night's experience,
telling her how she had followed Henry to Isabella's cottage,
detailing the interview with the quadroon, and her late return home alone.
The old woman urged her daughter to demand that the quadroon and her child
be at once sold to the negro speculators and taken out of the State,
or that Gertrude herself should separate from Henry.

"Assert your rights, my dear. Let no one share a heart that justly
belongs to you," said Mrs. Miller, with her eyes flashing fire.
"Don't sleep this night, my child, until that wench has been removed
from that cottage; and as for the child, hand that over to me,--
I saw at once that it was Henry's."

During these remarks, the old lady was walking up and down the room
like a caged lioness. She had learned from Isabella that she had
been purchased by Henry, and the innocence of the injured quadroon
caused her to acknowledge that he was the father of her child.
Few women could have taken such a matter in hand and carried it
through with more determination and success than old Mrs. Miller.
Completely inured in all the crimes and atrocities connected
with the institution of slavery, she was also aware that,
to a greater or less extent, the slave women shared with their
mistress the affections of their master. This caused her to look
with a suspicious eye on every good-looking negro woman that she saw.