Here, for the time being, the conversation ended; but the soul of John Bayliss, awakened by the simple, straight-forward speech of his bond-woman, refused to be quieted, and he made this the subject of earnest prayer until the path of duty became so clear before him that he could not do otherwise than manumit his twenty slaves, although bitterly opposed by his wife (who refused to free the three held in her own right). Elsie, the wife of Willis Hamilton, belonged to a neighboring planter. She was sold to a drover for the Southern market, and was being torn from her husband and two little daughters. Willis, in his agony, went from house to house, imploring some one to buy her, so that she might remain near her family. Finally one Dr. John P. Chester, who was about opening a hotel, agreed to purchase Elsie for $800, if Willis would pay $300 in work in the house, and fare the same as the other servants in board and clothing. With these conditions Willis gladly complied; but after they had spent a few months in their new home Deacon Bayliss examined their article of agreement and found it to be illegal. He told Willis that Dr. Chester could sell Elsie at any time, and he could establish no claim to her, even had he paid the $300, which, at the wages he was receiving, would take him nearly nine years to earn, with the interest, and advised him to leave Dr. Chester and work for wages, as he had done since his manumission. This advice was immediately acted upon, Willis being permitted to spend his nights with his wife. Every thing passed off pleasantly for a few weeks, until one of the house-servants told Elsie that she overheard Master John sell both her and Willis to a slave-trader, who would the following night convey them to the river with a drove ready for New Orleans. Frantic as the poor woman was with terror and grief at this information, she managed to perform her duties as usual until supper-time; and when all were seated at the table she slipped out unobserved, ran through a corn-field into the woods, sending word to Willis by a fellow-servant to meet her at a certain log. The moment Willis received the message he hastened to her with flying feet; and here the wretched husband and wife, but a few days before so full of plans for a pleasant future, held their council in tears. Willis, in his sudden fright and excitement, could only exclaim: "What shall we do? Where shall we go?" Elsie, cooler and more composed, suggested going to Deacon Bayliss for advice. This Willis quickly did, and soon returned, it having been arranged that he should bring Elsie there and secrete her in the attic until the excitement of the hunt was over. After this they assumed the names of Bill and Jane, a brother and sister who answered to their own description of color and size on Willia's free papers--the whole list of the twenty slaves emancipated by Deacon Bayliss being recorded on each paper.