"Oh, Ann, don't, pray don't talk so mournfully! Is there no hope? Can't you be sold somewhere in the city? I have got about fifty dollars now in money. I'd stop buying myself, and buy you; make my instalments in fifties or hundreds, as I could raise it; but I spoke to a lawyer about it, and he read the law to me, showing that I, as a slave, couldn't be allowed to hold property; and there is no white man in whom I have sufficient confidence, or who would be willing to accommodate me in this way. Mine is a deplorable case; but I'm going to see what can be done. I'll look about among the citizens, to see if some of them will not buy you; for I cannot be separated from you. It will kill me; it will, it will!" "Oh, don't, Henry, don't! for myself I can stand much; but when I think of _you_." He caught me passionately to his breast; and, in that embrace, he seemed to say, "_They shall not part us!_" He seated himself on a low stool beside me, with one of my hands clasped in his, and thus, with his tender eyes bent upon me, such is the illusion of love, I forgot the terror by which I was surrounded, and yielded myself to a fascination as absorbing as that which encircled me in the grove on that memorable Sunday evening. "Why, Henry, is this you?" and a strong hand was laid upon his shoulder. Looking up, I beheld Charley. "And is this you, Charles Allen?" asked the other. "_Yes, this is me._ I dare say you scarcely expected to find me here, where I never thought I should be." At this I was reminded of the significant ejaculation that Ophelia makes in her madness, "Lord, we know what we are, but we know not what we may be!" "I am sold, Henry," continued Charles, "sold away from my poor wife and children;" his voice faltered and the big tears rolled down his cheeks. "I see from your manner toward Ann, that she is or was expected to be your wife." "Yes, she was pledged to be." "_Yes, and is_," I added with fervor. At this, Henry only pressed my hand tightly. "Yet," pursued Charles, "she is taken from you." "_She is_," was the brief and bitter reply. "Now, Henry Graham, are we men? and do we submit to these things?" "Alas!" and the words came through Henry's set teeth, "we are _not_ men; we are only chattels, property, merchandise, _slaves_." "But is it right for us to be so? I feel the high and lordly instincts of manhood within me. Must I conquer them? Must I stifle the eloquent cry of Nature in my breast? Shall I see my wife and children left behind to the mercy of a hard master, and willingly desert them simply because another man says that, in exchange for this sacrifice of happiness and hope, _his daughter_ shall play upon Chickering's finest piano?"