the vicinity,
to outshine all her rural neighbors in splendor. For the full
realization of this ambition, a new carriage was, in her opinion,
absolutely necessary. This fact she communicated to her husband, and
upon some demur on his part, a thing now very rare, her temper, as
usual, broke forth in a storm of reproach and abuse, so that the poor
man, completely subdued, was glad to purchase peace by acquiescence
in what his judgment regarded as a foolish expense; and he prepared
immediately to set off for L---- to procure the coveted vehicle. But
before he had mounted, his wife, yet hot from their recent altercation,
discovered or affected to discover some negligence on the part of the
mulatto girl, who was engaged in nursing the child, which was at this
time suffering from a dangerous illness. Now the one tender trait of
this violent woman was intense love for her offspring; but it was a
love that, far from softening her manner toward others, partook, on the
contrary, of the fierceness of her general character, and became, like
that of a wild animal for its young, a source of constant apprehension
to those whose duty compelled them to approach its object. So now,
seizing the weeping culprit by the hair, she dragged her to the door,
and, after exhausting her own powers of maltreatment, called to her
husband and ordered him to bring, on his return, a new cowhide,--"For
you shall," cried she, in uncontrollable rage, "give this wretch, in the
morning, two hundred lashes!" It was a brutal threat, falling from the
lips of one who was called a lady: for, of all tortures, that of
the cowhide is for the moment the most intolerable, in its sharp,
penetrating agony, as is well known by those who remember even a
moderate application of it to their own person in school-boy days. The
victim knew that the execution of the barbarous menace would be strict
to the letter, and that it would be but little preferable to death
itself. Yet, in spite of this, she now, for the first time, failed to
cower and tremble, but arose and faced her oppressor, erect and defiant.
The last drop had now been dashed into the cup of endurance,--the final
blow had been struck, under which the human spirit either falls crushed
and prostrated forever, or from which it springs up tempered to
adamantine hardness, and incapable thenceforth of feeling either fear
for itself or pity for its smiter. That one moment had entirely reversed
the relations of the two, mak