o leave, and fell back
to her former mode of treatment of this pitiable woman. There came a
limit, however, to Kizzie's endurance. She packed up her few goods,
firmly resolved to see her mistress' face no more. She would stay a few
days at Amy's and Chloe's, and then go farther. She would have taken up
her abode altogether with them, as Mr. Lisle advised, only that she and
those amiable women had not been the best of friends. Kizzie had been
too solitary and brooding to form a pleasant companion. At the last
moment she might again have hesitated had she not already sent her
parcels ahead of her by a chance black man.

Having cast a last lingering look about her cabin, she leaned over her
cradle, which she wet with her tears. Then going into the sunlight, she
bent down over her patch of pinks, which were now in fullest fragrance.
She had fallen on her knees, bowing over, and burying her wrinkled face
in the rich mass of bloom and beauty.

Kizzie's heart had not broken over the cradle, nor was it doomed to
break over her beloved blossoms. A man's step startled her. Raising her
head, a tall, dignified military officer of color met her view. He
approached her close, looking steadily at her with those smiling,
pleasant eyes which Kizzie had never forgotten, could never forget, were
they in her Joe of fourteen, or in this fine looking officer. Her heart
said--"It is my Joe; my baby Joe," but her lips could not syllable a
word.

"Mother," said the trembling, glad voice, though so deep and heavy, "you
still love your pinks, mother, do you still love your Joe?"

Ah, what a meeting was that! The wonder is that Kizzie survived it.
Sorrow, grief, had not killed, neither did joy.

When Joe told his mother he had come for her to accompany him North, she
proposed taking her pinks, earth and all.

"O no mother, I have a house and garden of my own; you shall have a
place for your pinks as large as you wish."

The old woman looked up at him questioningly. Before she could speak he
said:

"I see what you wish to know, yes, I am married." "And have a baby Joe"
too, he would have added, only that he had resolved his mother should be
taken by surprise in the visible knowledge of her grandchild.

It was not now difficult for Kizzie to leave her old home; and as she
journeyed northward astonished by new scenes, she learned from Joe his
history since their painful separation.

He had grieved so for his mother that his new master tho