at face, that it
checked even the sobs of sorrow. They pressed around her in breathless
stillness.

"Eva!" said St Clare gently. She did not hear.

"O Eva, tell us what you see! What is it?" said her father.

'A bright, a glorious smile passed over her face, and she said,
brokenly: "O love--joy--peace!" gave one sigh, and passed from death
unto life!'

Previous to the death of the dear Eva, she had induced her father to
promise to emancipate Tom, and he was taking steps to give this
faithful servant his liberty, when a terrible catastrophe occurred. St
Clare was suddenly killed in attempting to appease a quarrel in one of
the coffee-rooms of New Orleans. His family were plunged into grief
and consternation; and by his trustees the whole of the servants in
the establishment, Uncle Tom included, were brought to sale in the
open market.

'Beneath a splendid dome were men of all nations, moving to and fro
over the marble pave. On every side of the circular area were little
tribunes, or stations, for the use of speakers and auctioneers. Two of
these, on opposite sides of the area, were now occupied by brilliant
and talented gentlemen, enthusiastically forcing up, in English and
French commingled, the bids of connoisseurs in their various wares. A
third one, on the other side, still unoccupied, was surrounded by a
group waiting the moment of sale to begin. And here we may recognise
the St Clare servants, awaiting their turn with anxious and dejected
faces.

'Tom had been standing wistfully examining the multitude of faces
thronging around him for one whom he would wish to call master; and,
if you should ever be under the necessity, sir, of selecting out of
two hundred men one who was to become your absolute owner and
disposer, you would perhaps realise, just as Tom did, how few there
were that you would feel at all comfortable in being made over to. Tom
saw abundance of men, great, burly, gruff men; little, chirping, dried
men; long-favoured, lank, hard men; and every variety of
stubbed-looking, common-place men, who pick up their fellow-men as one
picks up chips, putting them into the fire or a basket with equal
unconcern, according to their convenience; but he saw no St Clare.

'A little before the sale commenced, a short, broad, muscular man, in
a checked shirt, considerably open at the bosom, and pantaloons much
the worse for dirt and wear, elbowed his way through the crowd, like
one who is going actively into a