ake the child with me
when I go North, provided I can do it without having it discovered that
she is colored, for it would put me in an awkward fix to have it known
that I took a colored child away with me."

"Oh, never fear," said St. Pierre, slapping his friend on the shoulder.
"The child is whiter than you are, and you know you can pass for white."

True to his promise, Josiah Collins wrote to a Quaker friend, whom he
knew in Pennsylvania, and told him the particulars of the child's
history, and the wishes of her father, and the compensation he would
give. In a few days he received a favorable response in which the friend
told him he was glad to have the privilege of rescuing one of that fated
race from a doom more cruel than the grave; that the compensation was no
object; that they had lost their only child, and hoped that she would in
a measure fill the void in their hearts.

Highly gratified with the kind letter of the friend, Le Grange gave the
child into the charge of Josiah Collins, and putting a check for five
hundred dollars in his hand, parted with them at the [station].

He went back into the country, and told his wife that he had found a
trader, who thought the child so beautiful, and that he had bought her
to raise as a fancy girl, and had given him five hundred dollars for
her. "And here," said he, handing her a set of beautiful pearls, "is my
peace offering."

Georgette's eyes glistened as she entertwined the pearls amid the wealth
of her raven hair, and clasped them upon her beautifully rounded arms.

What mattered it to her if every jewel cost a heart throb, and if the
whole set were bought with the price of blood? They suited her style of
beauty, and she cared not what they cost. Proud, imperious, and selfish,
she knew no law but her own will; no gratification but the enjoyment of
her own desires.

Passing from the boudoir of his wife, he sought the room where Ellen
sat, busily cutting and arranging the clothing for the field hands, and
gazing furtively around he said, "here is Minnie's likeness. I have
managed all right." "Thank Heaven!" said the sad hearted mother, as she
paused to dry her tears, and then resumed her needle. "Anything is
better--than Slavery."

Chapter V

Before I proceed any further with my story, let me tell the reader
something of the Le Granges, whom I have so unceremoniously introduced.

Le Grange, like Le Croix, was of French and Spanish descent, and his
f