saleable or got in his way. On the sale of the first, the mother "took
on so that he was obliged to flog her almost to death before she gave
up." But he had made her understand that their children were to be sold,
at his convenience, and that he "would not have more than three little
niggers about the house at one time."

After that first lesson she had been "reasonable."

Our hostess, a Kentucky lady, used to lament the loss of two boys--"two
of the beautifulest boys!"

They were the sons of her bachelor uncle, who had had a passion for
Liza, one of his father's slaves, a tall, handsome quadroon, who
rejected his suit and was in love with Jo, a fellow slave. To punish
both, the young master had Jo tied up and lashed until he fainted, while
Liza was held so that she must witness the torture, until insensibility
came to her relief. This was done three times, when Jo was sold, and
Liza herself bound to the whipping-post, and lashed until she yielded,
and became the mother of those two beautiful boys.

"But," added her biographer, "she never smiled after Jo was sold, took
consumption and died when her youngest boy was two months old. They were
the beautifulest boys I ever laid eyes on, and uncle sot great store by
them. He couldn't bear to have them out of his sight, and always said he
would give them to me. He would have done it, I know, if he had made a
will; but he took sick sudden, raving crazy, and never got his senses
for one minute. It often took three men to hold him on the bed. He
thought he saw Jo and Liza, and died cursing and raving."

She paused to wipe away a tear, and added: "The boys were sold down
South. Maybe your way, up North, is best, after all. I never knew a
cruel master die happy. They are sure to be killed, or die dreadful!"

She had an old, rheumatic cook, Martha, who seldom left her basement
kitchen, except when she went to her Baptist meeting, but for hours and
hours she crooned heart-breaking melodies of that hope within her, of a
better and a happier world.

She had a severe attack of acute inflammation of the eyelids, which
forcibly closed her eyes, and kept them closed; then she refused to
work.

Her wages, one hundred and seventy-five dollars a year, were paid to her
owner, a woman, and these went on; so her employer sent for her owner,
and I, as an abolitionist, was summoned to the conference, that I might
learn to pity the sorrows of mistresses, and understand the
deceitfulness