nd, willing to suggest some doubt to the lad, because for
many peculiar reasons this statement seemed to me shocking, I said, 'What,
old Mr. K----?' 'No, massa R----.' 'Did your mother tell you so?' 'No,
missis, me ashamed to ask her; Mr. C----'s children told me so, and I
'spect they know it.' Renty, you see, did not take Falconbridge's view of
such matters; and as I was by no means sorry to find that he considered
his relation to Mr. K---- a disgrace to his mother, which is an advance in
moral perception not often met with here, I said no more upon the subject.

_Tuesday, March 3._--This morning, old House Molly, coming from Mr.
G----'s upon some errand to me, I asked her if Renty's statement was true;
she confirmed the whole story, and, moreover, added that this connection
took place after Betty was married to head-man Frank. Now, he, you know,
E----, is the chief man at the Rice Island, second in authority to Mr.
O----, and indeed, for a considerable part of the year, absolute master
and guardian during the night, of all the people and property at the rice
plantation, for, after the early spring, the white overseer himself is
obliged to betake himself to the mainland to sleep, out of the influence
of the deadly malaria of the rice swamp, and Frank remains sole sovereign
of the island, from sunset to sunrise, in short, during the whole period
of his absence. Mr. ---- bestowed the highest commendations upon his
fidelity and intelligence, and, during the visit Mr. R---- K---- paid us
at the island, he was emphatic in his praise of both Frank and his wife,
the latter having, as he declared, by way of climax to his eulogies, quite
the principles of a white woman. Perhaps she imbibed them from his
excellent influence over her. Frank is a serious, sad, sober-looking, very
intelligent man; I should think he would not relish having his wife
borrowed from him even by the white gentleman, who admired her principles
so much; and it is quite clear from poor Renty's speech about his mother,
that by some of these people (and if by any, then very certainly by
Frank), the disgrace of such an injury is felt and appreciated much after
the fashion of white men.

This old woman Molly is a wonderfully intelligent, active, energetic
creature, though considerably over seventy years old; she was talking to
me about her former master, Major ----, and what she was pleased to call
the _revelation_ war (i.e. revolution war), during which that ge