"I don't know;" but this time I accompanied my reply with a sigh. "What you grunt fur?" I could not, though so much distressed, resist a laugh at this singular interrogatory. "Don't yer want to go South? I does. They say it's right nice down dar. Plenty of oranges. When Masser fust sold me, I was mightily 'stressed; den Missis, she told me dat dar was a sight of oranges down dar, and dat we didn't work any on Sundays, and we was 'lowed to marry; so I got mightily in de notion of gwine. You see Masser Jones never 'lowed his black folks to marry. I wanted to marry four, five men, and he wouldn't let me. Den we had to work all day Sundays; never had any time to make anyting for ourselves; and I does love oranges! I never had more an' a quarter of one in my life." Thus she wandered on until she fell off to sleep; but the leaden-winged cherub visited me not that night. My eye-lids refused to close over the parched and tear-stained orbs. I dully moved from side to side, changed and altered my position fifty times, yet there was no repose for me. "Not poppy nor mandragora Nor all the drowsy syrups of the world, Could then medicine me to that sweet sleep Which I owed yesterday." I saw the dull gray streak of the morning beam, as coldly it played through the gratings of my room. There, scattered in dismal confusion over the floor, lay the poor human beings, for whose lives, health and happiness, save as conducing to the pecuniary advantage of the trafficker, no thought or care was taken. I rose hastily and adjusted my dress, for I had not removed it during the night. The noise of my rising aroused several of the others, and simultaneously they sprang to their feet, apprehensive that they had slept past the prescribed hour for rising. Finding that their alarm was groundless, and that they were by the clock an hour too early, they grumbled a good deal at what they thought my unnecessary awaking. I would have given much to win to my heart the easy indifference as to fate, which many of them wore like a loose glove; but there I was vulnerable at every pore, and wounded at each. What a curse to a slave's life is a sensitive nature! That day closed as had the preceding, save that at evening Henry did not come as before. I wandered out in the yard, which was surrounded by a high brick-wall, covered at the top with sharp iron spikes, to prevent the escape of slaves. Through this barricaded ground I was allowed to take a little promenade. There was not a shrub or green blade of grass to enliven me; but my eyes lingered not upon the earth. They were turned up to the full moon, shining so round and goldenly from the purple heaven, and, scattered sparsely through the fields of azure, were a few stars, looking brighter and larger from their scarcity. "Will my death-hour ever come?" I asked myself despairingly. "Have I not tasted of the worst of life? Is not the poisoned cup drained to its last dregs?"