the clear ring on the last syllable of the word
_"dollars,"_ as the auctioneer announced his price, and Tom was made
over.--He had a master!

He was pushed from the block;--the short, bullet-headed man seizing
him roughly by the shoulder, pushed him to one side, saying, in a harsh
voice, "Stand there, _you!_"

Tom hardly realized anything; but still the bidding went on,--ratting,
clattering, now French, now English. Down goes the hammer again,--Susan
is sold! She goes down from the block, stops, looks wistfully back,--her
daughter stretches her hands towards her. She looks with agony in the
face of the man who has bought her,--a respectable middle-aged man, of
benevolent countenance.

"O, Mas'r, please do buy my daughter!"

"I'd like to, but I'm afraid I can't afford it!" said the gentleman,
looking, with painful interest, as the young girl mounted the block, and
looked around her with a frightened and timid glance.

The blood flushes painfully in her otherwise colorless cheek, her eye
has a feverish fire, and her mother groans to see that she looks
more beautiful than she ever saw her before. The auctioneer sees his
advantage, and expatiates volubly in mingled French and English, and
bids rise in rapid succession.

"I'll do anything in reason," said the benevolent-looking gentleman,
pressing in and joining with the bids. In a few moments they have run
beyond his purse. He is silent; the auctioneer grows warmer; but bids
gradually drop off. It lies now between an aristocratic old citizen
and our bullet-headed acquaintance. The citizen bids for a few turns,
contemptuously measuring his opponent; but the bullet-head has the
advantage over him, both in obstinacy and concealed length of purse, and
the controversy lasts but a moment; the hammer falls,--he has got the
girl, body and soul, unless God help her!

Her master is Mr. Legree, who owns a cotton plantation on the Red river.
She is pushed along into the same lot with Tom and two other men, and
goes off, weeping as she goes.

The benevolent gentleman is sorry; but, then, the thing happens every
day! One sees girls and mothers crying, at these sales, _always!_ it
can't be helped, &c.; and he walks off, with his acquisition, in another
direction.

Two days after, the lawyer of the Christian firm of B. & Co., New York,
send on their money to them. On the reverse of that draft, so obtained,
let them write these words of the great Paymaster, to whom they shall
ma