away without at least seeing her, and the trader did all he could to keep
this idea alive in her.

While Isabella, with a weary heart, was passing sleepless nights
thinking only of her daughter and Henry, the latter was seeking relief
in that insidious enemy of the human race, the intoxicating cup.
His wife did all in her power to make his life a pleasant and a happy one,
for Gertrude was devotedly attached to him; but a weary heart gets
no gladness out of sunshine. The secret remorse that rankled in his
bosom caused him to see all the world blood-shot. He had not visited
his mother-in-law since the evening he had given her liberty to use her
own discretion as to how Isabella and her child should be disposed of.
He feared even to go near the house, for he did not wish to see his child.
Gertrude felt this every time he declined accompanying her to her mother's.
Possessed of a tender and confiding heart, entirely unlike her mother,
she sympathized deeply with her husband. She well knew that all young
men in the South, to a greater or less extent, became enamored of
the slave-women, and she fancied that his case was only one of the many,
and if he had now forsaken all others for her she did not wish to be punished;
but she dared not let her mother know that such were her feelings.
Again and again had she noticed the great resemblance between Clotelle
and Henry, and she wished the child in better hands than those of
her cruel mother.

At last Gertrude determined to mention the matter to her husband.
Consequently, the next morning, when they were seated on the back piazza,
and the sun was pouring its splendid rays upon everything around,
changing the red tints on the lofty hills in the distance into
streaks of purest gold, and nature seeming by her smiles to favor
the object, she said,--