void the noisy crowd, and being fatigued with our long tramp over
the muddy road, my companion and I entered the more reputable portion of
Tom's Store in quest of a seat. It was nearly deserted. A lazy yellow
boy was stretched at full length on a pine counter, which kept customers
at an honest distance from the rows of half-filled shelves, occupying
three sides of the room, and on a low bench in front of him sat a woman
and two children. These four were the only persons in the apartment. The
woman seemed to be not more than twenty-five, and was dressed in a neat
calico gown, and had a tidy appearance. A thin woolen shawl was thrown
over her shoulders, and she wore on her head a clean red and yellow
kerchief, tied as a turban, and on her feet white cotton stockings and
coarse untanned shoes. These last were nearly new, and very clumsy, and,
like the rest of her costume, travel-stained and bespattered with mud.
She had evidently walked a long distance that morning.

Her figure was slight and graceful, and her face very beautiful. She had
long, black, glossy hair, straight, regular features, a rich olive
complexion, and large, dark lustrous eyes, which, as she sat opposite
the open door, were fixed on the thick, gloomy woods with an earnest,
almost agonizing gaze, as if they were reading in its tangled depths the
dark, uncertain future that lay before her. Never shall I forget the
expression of her face. Never have I seen its look of keen, intense
agony, and its full, perfect, utter despair.

One of the children was a little girl of about seven years, with a
sweet, hopeful face, a clear rosy skin, and brown, wavy hair; and the
other, a little mulatto boy, a few years older. They each held one of
the woman's hands, and something peculiar in their attitudes made me
look closely at them. A thin piece of iron, called by slave-traders a
'bracelet,' encircled their wrists, and fastened their arms to the
woman's! They were slaves!

I entered the cabin a few steps in advance of Preston, who paused in the
doorway as he caught sight of the group. The woman did not notice him,
but his face turned to a marble white, and his voice trembled with
emotion as he exclaimed:

'My God! Phyllis, is this _you_?'

The woman looked up, sprang to her feet, took one step forward, and then
sank to the floor. Stretching out her shackled arms, bound to the
children as they were, she clasped his knees and cried out:

'O Master Robert! dear Master