"What do you want here?" inquired Isabella, with a quivering voice.

"None of your insolence to me," bawled out the old woman,
at the top of her voice; "if you do, I will give you what you
deserve so much, my lady,--a good whipping."

In an agony of grief, pale, trembling, and ready to sink
to the floor, Isabella was only sustained by the hope that she
would be able to save her child. At last, regaining her
self-possession, she ordered them both to leave the house.
Feeling herself insulted, the old woman seized the tongs
that stood by the fire-place, and raised them to strike
the quadroon down; but the slave-trader immediately jumped
between the women, exclaiming,--

"I won't buy her, Mrs. Miller, if you injure her."

Poor little Clotelle screamed as she saw the strange woman raise
the tongs at her mother. With the exception of old Aunt Nancy,
a free colored woman, whom Isabella sometimes employed to work for her,
the child had never before seen a strange face in her mother's dwelling.
Fearing that Isabella would offer some resistance, Mrs. Miller had
ordered the overseer of her own farm to follow her; and, just as
Jennings had stepped between the two women, Mull, the negro-driver,
walked into the room.

"Seize that impudent hussy," said Mrs. Miller to the overseer,
"and tie her up this minute, that I may teach her a lesson
she won't forget in a hurry."