"I don't want much money, but I must know little 'bout readin' and
countin' up, else I'll get lost and cheated. You'll help me do dis,
honey, and I'll bless you all my days, and so will my old mammy, if
I ever gets her safe away."

With tears of sympathy shining on her cheeks, and both hands
stretched out to the poor soul who implored this small boon of her,
Christie promised all the help that in her lay, and kept her word
religiously.

From that time, Hepsey's cause was hers; she laid by a part of her
wages for "ole mammy," she comforted Hepsey with happy prophecies of
success, and taught with an energy and skill she had never known
before. Novels lost their charms now, for Hepsey could give her a
comedy and tragedy surpassing any thing she found in them, because
truth stamped her tales with a power and pathos the most gifted
fancy could but poorly imitate.

The select receptions upstairs seemed duller than ever to her now,
and her happiest evenings were spent in the tidy kitchen, watching
Hepsey laboriously shaping A's and B's, or counting up on her worn
fingers the wages they had earned by months of weary work, that she
might purchase one treasure,--a feeble, old woman, worn out with
seventy years of slavery far away there in Virginia.

For a year Christie was a faithful servant to her mistress, who
appreciated her virtues, but did not encourage them; a true friend
to poor Hepsey, who loved her dearly, and found in her sympathy and
affection a solace for many griefs and wrongs. But Providence had