“‘Ah ma’am,’ said Lucy, ’what shall I do now she is gone?  I have got no friend left; if I could only die too—­Lord have mercy upon me.’

“‘You have still a friend, Lucy,’ I said.  ’One that well deserves the name of friend.  You must seek Him out, and make a friend of Him.  Jesus Christ is the friend of the poor and desolate.  Have you no children, Lucy?’

“‘God only knows, ma’am.’

“‘What do you mean?’ I said.  ‘Are they all dead?’

“’They are gone, ma’am—­all sold.  I ain’t seen one of them for twenty years.  Days have come and gone, and nights have come and gone, but day and night is all the same to me.  You did not hear, may be, for grand folks don’t often hear of the troubles of the poor slave—­that one day I had seven children with me, and the next they were all sold; taken off, and I did not even see them, to bid them good-by.  My master sent me, with my mistress to the country, where her father lived, (for she was sickly, and he said it would do her good,) and when we came back there was no child to meet me.  I have cried, ma’am, enough for Miss Ellen, but I never shed a tear for my own.’

“‘But what induced him, Lucy, to do such a wicked thing?’

“’Money, ma’am, and drinking, and the devil.  He did not leave me one.  My five boys, and my two girls, all went at once.  My oldest daughter, ma’am, I was proud of her, for she was a handsome girl, and light-colored too—­she went, and the little one, ma’am.  My heart died in me.  I hated him.  I used to dream I had killed him, and I would laugh out in my sleep, but I couldn’t murder him on her account.  My mistress, she cried day and night, and called him cruel, and she would say, ’Lucy, I’d have died before I would have done it.’  I couldn’t murder him, ma’am, ’twas my mistress held me back.’

“‘No, Lucy,’ said I, ’’twas not your mistress, it was the Lord; and thank Him that you are not a murderer.  Did you ever think of the consequences of such an act?’

“‘Lor, ma’am, do you think I cared for that?  I wasn’t afraid of hanging.’

“’I did not mean that, Lucy.  I meant, did you not fear His power, who could not only kill your body, but destroy your soul in hell?’

“’I didn’t think of any thing, for a long time.  My mistress got worse after that, and I nursed her until she died; poor Miss Ellen was a baby, and I had her too.  When master died I thought it was no use for me to wish him ill, for the hand of the Lord was heavy on him, for true.  ‘Lucy,’ he said, ’you are a kind nurse to me, though I sold your children, but I’ve had no rest since.’  I couldn’t make him feel worse, ma’am, for he was going to his account with all his sins upon him.’

“‘This is the first time Lucy,’ I said, ’that I have ever known children to be sold away from their mother, and I look upon the crime with as great a horror as you do.’

“’Its the only time I ever knowed it, ma’am, and everybody pitied me, and many a kind thing was said to me, and many a hard word was said of him; true enough, but better be forgotten, as he is in his grave.’