t all
her life, and she could have drank herself to death long ago. Just say yes,
and be done with it, for it has worried me to death all day, and I want it
settled, and off my mind."

"Well, do as you like," said Captain Moore, "but remember, it will be your
fault if any thing happens."

"Nothing is going to happen," said Mrs. Moore, jumping up, and seizing the
wine and brandy bottles by the necks, and descending to the lower regions
with them.

"Here they are, Aunt Polly. William consents to your having them; and mind
you keep them out of sight."

"Set 'em down in the cheer thar, I'll take care of 'em, I jist wanted some
brandy to put in these potato puddins. I wonder what they'd taste like
without it."

But Mrs. Moore could not wait to talk about it, she was up stairs in
another moment, holding her baby on Neptune's back, and more at ease in her
mind than she had been since the subject was started, twenty-four hours
before.

There was but one other servant in the house, a middle-aged woman, who had
run away from her mistress in Boston; or rather, she had been seduced off
by the Abolitionists. While many would have done well under the
circumstances, Susan had never been happy, or comfortable, since this
occurred. Besides the self-reproach that annoyed her, (for she had been
brought on from Georgia to nurse a sick child, and its mother, a very
feeble person, had placed her dependence upon her,) Susan was illy
calculated to shift for herself. She was a timid, delicate woman, with
rather a romantic cast of mind; her mistress had always been an invalid,
and was fond of hearing her favorite books read aloud. For the style of
books that Susan had been accustomed to listen to, as she sat at her
sewing, Lalla Rookh would be a good specimen; and, as she had never been
put to hard work, but had merely been an attendant about her mistress'
room, most of her time was occupied in a literary way. Thus, having an
excellent memory, her head was a sort of store-room for lovesick snatches
of song. The Museum men would represent her as having snatched a feather of
the bird of song; but as this is a matter-of-fact kind of story, we will
observe, that Susan not being naturally very strong-minded, and her
education not more advanced than to enable her to spell out an antiquated
valentine, or to write a letter with a great many small i's in it, she is
rather to be considered the victim of circumstances and a soft heart. She
was, nev