head and one of his eyes towards me and answered, ‘Dear me, ma’am, I am very sorry—­I have sold them.’  My work fell down on the ground, and my mouth opened wide, but I could utter no sound, I was so dismayed and surprised; and he deliberately proceeded:  ’I didn’t know, ma’am, you see, at all, that you entertained any idea of making an investment of that nature; for I’m sure, if I had, I would willingly have sold the woman to you; but I sold her and her children this morning to Mr. ——.’  My dear E——­, though ——­ had resented my unmeasured upbraidings, you see they had not been without some good effect, and though he had, perhaps justly, punished my violent outbreak of indignation about the miserable scene I witnessed by not telling me of his humane purpose, he had bought these poor creatures, and so, I trust, secured them from any such misery in future.  I jumped up and left Mr. O——­ still speaking, and ran to find Mr. ——­, to thank him for what he had done, and with that will now bid you good bye.  Think, E——­, how it fares with slaves on plantations where there is no crazy Englishwoman to weep and entreat and implore and upbraid for them, and no master willing to listen to such appeals.

Dear E——.  There is one privilege which I enjoy here which I think few cockneyesses have ever had experience of, that of hearing my own extemporaneous praises chaunted bard-fashion by our negroes, in rhymes as rude and to measures as simple as ever any illustrious female of the days of King Brian Boroihme listened to.  Rowing yesterday evening through a beautiful sunset into a more beautiful moonrise, my two sable boatmen entertained themselves and me with alternate strophe and anti-strophe of poetical description of my personal attractions, in which my ‘wire waist’ recurred repeatedly, to my intense amusement.  This is a charm for the possession of which M——­ (my white nursemaid) is also invariably celebrated; and I suppose that the fine round natural proportions of the uncompressed waists of the sable beauties of these regions appear less symmetrical to eyes accustomed to them than our stay-cased figures, since ‘nothing pleaseth but rare accidents.’  Occasionally I am celebrated in these rowing chants as ‘Massa’s darling,’ and S——­ comes in for endless glorification on account of the brilliant beauty of her complexion; the other day, however, our poets made a diversion from the personal to the moral qualities of their small mistress, and after the usual tribute to her roses and lilies came the following rather significant couplet:—­

    Little Missis Sally,
    That’s a ruling lady.

At which all the white teeth simultaneously lightened from the black visages, while the subject of this equivocal commendation sat with infantine solemnity (the profoundest, I think, that the human countenance is capable of), surveying her sable dependants with imperturbable gravity.