Miss Emily Flint, the little girl to whom I had been bequeathed, was now in her sixteenth year.  Her mother considered it all right and honorable for her, or her future husband, to steal my children; but she did not understand how any body could hold up their heads in respectable society, after they had purchased their own children, as Mr. Sands had done.  Dr. Flint said very little.  Perhaps he thought that Benny would be less likely to be sent away if he kept quiet.  One of my letters, that fell into his hands, was dated from Canada; and he seldom spoke of me now.  This state of things enabled me to slip down into the storeroom more frequently, where I could stand upright, and move my limbs more freely.

Days, weeks, and months passed, and there came no news of Ellen.  I sent a letter to Brooklyn, written in my grandmother’s name, to inquire whether she had arrived there.  Answer was returned that she had not.  I wrote to her in Washington; but no notice was taken of it.  There was one person there, who ought to have had some sympathy with the anxiety of the child’s friends at home; but the links of such relations as he had formed with me, are easily broken and cast away as rubbish.  Yet how protectingly and persuasively he once talked to the poor, helpless slave girl!  And how entirely I trusted him!  But now suspicions darkened my mind.  Was my child dead, or had they deceived me, and sold her?

If the secret memoirs of many members of Congress should be published, curious details would be unfolded.  I once saw a letter from a member of Congress to a slave, who was the mother of six of his children.  He wrote to request that she would send her children away from the great house before his return, as he expected to be accompanied by friends.  The woman could not read, and was obliged to employ another to read the letter.  The existence of the colored children did not trouble this gentleman, it was only the fear that friends might recognize in their features a resemblance to him.

At the end of six months, a letter came to my grandmother, from Brooklyn.  It was written by a young lady in the family, and announced that Ellen had just arrived.  It contained the following message from her:  “I do try to do just as you told me to, and I pray for you every night and morning.”  I understood that these words were meant for me; and they were a balsam to my heart.  The writer closed her letter by saying, “Ellen is a nice little girl, and we shall like to have her with us.  My cousin, Mr. Sands, has given her to me, to be my little waiting maid.  I shall send her to school, and I hope some day she will write to you herself.”  This letter perplexed and troubled me.  Had my child’s father merely placed her there till she was old enough to support herself?  Or had he given her to his cousin, as a piece of property?  If the last idea was correct, his cousin might return to the south at any time, and hold Ellen as a slave.