reply; and miserable enough I remained. Towards evening, as I was sitting
alone, my children having gone to bed, Mr. O---- came into the room. I
had but one subject in my mind; I had not been able to eat for it. I
could hardly sit still for the nervous distress which every thought of
these poor people filled me with. As he sat down looking over some
accounts, I said to him, 'Have you seen Joe this afternoon, Mr. O----?'
(I give you our conversation as it took place.) 'Yes, ma'am; he is a
great deal happier than he was this morning.' 'Why, how is that?' asked I
eagerly. 'Oh, he is not going to Alabama. Mr. K---- heard that he had
kicked up a fuss about it (being in despair at being torn from one's wife
and children is called _kicking up a fuss_; this is a sample of overseer
appreciation of human feelings), and said that if the fellow wasn't
willing to go with him, he did not wish to be bothered with any niggers
down there who were to be troublesome, so he might stay behind.' 'And
does Psyche know this?' 'Yes, ma'am, I suppose so.' I drew a long breath;
and whereas my needle had stumbled through the stuff I was sewing for an
hour before, as if my fingers could not guide it, the regularity and
rapidity of its evolutions were now quite edifying. The man was for the
present safe, and I remained silently pondering his deliverance and the
whole proceeding, and the conduct of everyone engaged in it, and above
all Mr. ----'s share in the transaction, and I think for the first time
almost a sense of horrible personal responsibility and implication took
hold of my mind, and I felt the weight of an unimagined guilt upon my
conscience; and yet God knows this feeling of self-condemnation is very
gratuitous on my part, since when I married Mr. ---- I knew nothing of
these dreadful possessions of his, and even if I had, I should have been
much puzzled to have formed any idea of the state of things in which I
now find myself plunged, together with those whose well-doing is as vital
to me almost as my own.

With these agreeable reflections I went to bed. Mr. ---- said not a word
to me upon the subject of these poor people all the next day, and in the
meantime I became very impatient of this reserve on his part, because I
was dying to prefer my request that he would purchase Psyche and her
children, and so prevent any future separation between her and her
husband, as I supposed he would not again attempt to make a present of
Joe, at leas