ter, never having
been manumitted, was inventoried and sold with the other property. The
Colonel, then just of age, and a young man of fortune, bought her and
took her to the residence of his mother in Charleston. A governess was
provided for her, and a year or two afterward she was taken to the North
to be educated. There she was frequently visited by the Colonel; and
when fifteen her condition became such that she was obliged to return
home. He conveyed her to the plantation, where her elder son, David, was
soon after born, "Aunt Lucy" officiating on the occasion. When the child
was two years old, leaving it in charge of the aged negress, she
accompanied the Colonel to Europe, where they remained for a year.
Subsequently she passed another year at a Northern seminary; and then,
returning to the homestead, was duly installed as its mistress, and had
ever since presided over its domestic affairs. She was kind and good to
the negroes, who were greatly attached to her, and much of the
Colonel's wealth was due to her excellent management of the plantation.

Six years after the birth of "young Massa Davy," the Colonel married his
present wife, that lady having full knowledge of his left-handed
connection with Madam P----, and consenting that the "bond-woman" should
remain on the plantation, as its mistress. The legitimate wife resided,
during most of the year, in Charleston, and when at the homestead took
little interest in domestic matters. On one of her visits to the
plantation, twelve years before, her daughter, Miss Clara, was born, and
within a week, under the same roof, Madam P---- presented the Colonel
with a son--the lad Thomas, of whom I have spoken. As the mother was
slave, the children were so also at birth, but _they_ had been
manumitted by their father. One of them was being educated in Germany;
and it was intended that both should spend their lives in that country,
the taint in their blood being an insuperable bar to their ever
acquiring social position at the South.

As she finished the story, the old woman said, "Massa Davy am bery kind
to the missus, sar, but he _love_ de ma'am; an' he can't help it, 'cause
she'm jess so good as de angels."[E]

In conversation with a well-known Southern gentleman, not long since, I
mentioned these two cases, and commented on them as a man educated with
New England ideas might be supposed to do. The gentleman admitted that
he knew of twenty such instances, and gravely defe