w less
and less.

In 1832, when the Asiatic cholera fell upon Baltimore like an Alpine
avalanche upon a quiet Italian village, the colored creoles suffered
more, relatively, than any other portion of the population, probably
because they lived in the more confined streets in the centre of the
city. The venerable physician who furnished most of the particulars for
this sketch said: "I was passing through a narrow and rather dirty
street one day during the height of the cholera, when I met Dr. B----,
who asked me whether I did not know Madame Valanbrun: if so, would I go
with him to see her in one of the houses near? He had been there a few
hours before, and thought she had a severe attack of cholera. We went,
and found the venerable old lady _in articulo mortis_. She was much
changed, and the surroundings indicated an equally great change in her
circumstances which it was melancholy to witness. But one feature
redeemed all that was disgusting in the picture: round the squalid bed
five or six old negroes, men and women, knelt in deep devotion like
fixed statues, offering up their prayers to the Throne of grace for the
departing soul of their beloved mistress, whose life had been so
chequered by the sunshine of pleasure and the clouds of adversity. She
had just received the last rites of the Church. The priest had retired
to perform similar duties elsewhere, leaving the humble but devoted
blacks to watch the last breath of life and to close the eyes of their
lifelong friend and mistress. I never felt more veneration at the
deathbed of any of my own kindred, or deeper respect for mourners than I
then felt for those faithful servants of Madame Valanbrun. The old lady
died that evening. She devised the small remnant of her property to be
divided among her old servants in common.

"Among these colored Creoles were some remarkable women. Well do I
remember Suzette, Fanny, Clementine, as faithful watchers at sick beds:
many precious lives did they save by their skill, judgment and fidelity.
They were not _eye_-servants, working for money only: they worked from
the purest motives of benevolence, from the sentiment of Christian
charity.

"Another instance of fidelity came under my notice when I was a student
of medicine in 1819. I boarded at a good old Frenchman's, whose few
domestics were French creoles. One of these was the washerwoman. When
quite young she had left St. Domingo with her old mistress, who had been
kind to her