"I don't care if she is, we owe her nothing. For teaching us she was well paid; now let her take care of herself." "I am going after her to say I did not wish to insult her; for really, notwithstanding her Abolition sentiments, I like her very much, and I wish her always to like me." So she started off and overtook Miss Bradly at the gate. The explanation was, I presume, accepted, for they parted with kisses and tears. That evening, when I was serving the table, Miss Jane reported the conversation to her father, who applauded her manner of argument greatly. "Set my niggers free, indeed! Catch me doing any such foolish thing. I'd sooner be shot. Don't you look for anything of the kind, Ann; I'd sooner put you in my pocket." And this was the way he kept a sacred promise to his dead son! But cases such as this are numerous. The negro is lulled with promises by humane masters--promises such as those that led the terror-stricken Macbeth on to his fearful doom. They "Keep the word of promise to the ear, But break it to the hope." How many of them are trifled with and lured on; buoyed up from year to year with stories, which those who tell them are resolved shall never be realized. My memory runs back now to some such wretched recollections; and my heart shrivels and crumbles at the bare thought, like scorched paper. Oh, where is there to be found injustice like that which the American slaves daily and hourly endure, without a word of complaint? "We die daily"--die to love, to hope, to feeling, humanity, and all the high and noble gifts that make existence something more than a mere breathing span. We die to all enlargement of mind and expansion of heart. Our every energy is bound down with many bolts and bars; yet whole folios have been written by men calling themselves wise, to prove that we are by far the happiest portion of the population of this broad Union! What a commentary upon the liberality of free men! After the conversation with Miss Bradly, the young ladies began to resume their old severity, which the death of young master had checked; but Mr. Peterkin still seemed moody and troubled. He drank to a frightful excess. It seemed to have increased his moroseness. He slept sounder at night, and later in the morning, and was swollen and bloated to almost twice his former dimensions. His face was a dark crimson purple; he spoke but little, and then never without an oath. His daughters remarked the change, but sought not to dissuade him. Perhaps they cared not if his excesses were followed by death. I had long known that they treated him with respect only out of apprehension that they would be cut short of patrimonial favors. But the death of young master had almost certainly insured them against this, and they were unusually insolent to their father; but this he appeared not to notice; for he was too sottishly drunk even to heed them.