I dared not confront her obstinacy with any argument; for I knew she was unwilling to believe. Poor, apathetic creature! she was happier in yielding up her soul to the keeping of her owner, than she would have been in guiding it herself. This to me would have been enslavement indeed; such as I could not have endured. He, my Creator, who gave me this heritage of thought, and the bounty of Hope, gave me, likewise, a strong, unbridled will, which nothing can conquer. The whip may bring my body into subjection, but the free, free spirit soars where it lists, and no man can check it. God is with the soul! aye, in it, animating and encouraging it, sustaining it amid the crash, conflict, and the elemental war of passion! The poor, weak flesh may yield; but, thanks to God! the soul, well-girded and heaven-poised, will never shrink. Many and long have been the unslumbering nights when I have lain upon my heap of straw, gazing at the pallid moon, and the sorrowful stars; weaving mystic fancies as the wailing night-wind seemed to bring me a message from the distant and the lost! I have felt whole vials of heavenly unction poured upon my bruised soul; rich gifts have descended, like the manna of old, upon my famishing spirit; and I have felt that God was nearer to me in the night time. I have imagined that the very atmosphere grew luminous with the presence of angelic hosts; and a strange music, audible alone to my ears, has lulled me to the gentlest of dreams! God be thanked for the night, the stars, and the spirit's vision! Joy came not to me with the breaking of the morn; but peace, undefined, enwrapped me when the mantle of darkness and the crown of stars attested the reign of Night! I grieved to think that my poor friend, this old, lonely negress, had nothing to soothe and charm her wearied heart. There was not a single flower blooming up amid the rank weeds of her nature. Hard and rocky it seemed; yet had I found the prophet's wand, whereby to strike the flinty heart, and draw forth living waters! pure, genial draughts of kindliness, sweet honey-drops, hived away in the lonely cells of her caverned soul! I would have loved to give her a portion of that peace which radiated with its divine light the depths of my inmost spirit. I had come to her now for the purpose of giving her the sad intelligence that awaited poor Amy; but I did not find her in a suitable mood. I felt assured that her harshness would, in some way or other, jar the finer and more sensitive harmonies of my nature. Perhaps she would say that she did not care for the sufferings of the poor, lonely child; and that her bereavement would be nothing more than just; yet I knew that she did not feel thus. Deep in her secret soul there lay folded a white-winged angel, even as the uncomely bulb envelopes the fair petals of the lily; and I longed for the summer warmth of kindness to bid it come forth and bloom in beauty.