r kind
mistress at a time when she most needed her services. God did not raise her
up friends because she had done wrong."

"You are right, Emmy, in your views of Susan's conduct; but you should be
careful how you trace motives to such a source. She certainly did wrong,
and she has suffered; that is all we can say. We must do the best we can to
restore her to health. She is very happy with us now, and will, no doubt,
after a while, enjoy her liberty: it would be a most unnatural thing if she
did not."

"But how is it, Mr. Kent," said the colonel, "that after you induce these
poor devils to give up their homes, that you do not start them in life; set
them going in some way in the new world to which you transfer them. You do
not give them a copper, I am told."

"We don't calculate to do that," said Mr. Kent.

"I believe you," said Mrs. Moore, maliciously.

Mr. Kent looked indignant at the interruption, while his discomfiture was
very amusing to the young officers, they being devoted admirers of Mrs.
Moore's talents and mince pies. They laughed heartily; and Mr. Kent looked
at them as if nothing would have induced him to overlook their impertinence
but the fact, that they were very low on the list of lieutenants, and he
was an abolition agent. "We calculate, sir, to give them their freedom, and
then let them look out for themselves."

"That is, you have no objection to their living in the same world with
yourself, provided it costs you nothing," said the colonel.

"We make them free," said Mr. Kent. "They have their right to life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. They are no longer enslaved, body
and soul. If I see a man with his hands and feet chained, and I break those
chains, it is all that God expects me to do; let him earn his own living."

"But suppose he does not know how to do so," said Mrs. Moore, "what then?
The occupations of a negro at the South are so different from those of the
people at the North."

"Thank God they are, ma'am," said Mr. Kent, grandly. "We have no overseers
to draw the blood of their fellow creatures, and masters to look on and
laugh. We do not snatch infants from their mothers' breasts, and sell them
for whisky."

"Neither do we," said Mrs. Moore, her bosom heaving with emotion; "no one
but an Abolitionist could have had such a wicked thought. No wonder that
men who glory in breaking the laws of their country should make such
misstatements."

"Madam," said Mr. Kent, "they