I then thought I would go to the kitchen and assist Aunt Polly. I found her very much excited, and in close conversation with our master's son John, whom the servants familiarly addressed as "young master." I have, as yet, forborne all direct and special mention of him, though he was by no means a person lacking interest. Unlike his father and sisters, he was gentle in disposition, full of loving kindness; yet he was so taciturn, that we had seldom an indication of that generosity that burned so intensely in the very centre of his soul, and which subsequent events called forth. His sisters pronounced him stupid; and, in the choice phraseology of his father, he was "poke-easy;" but the poor, undiscriminating black people, called him gentle. To me he said but little; yet that little was always kindly spoken, and I knew it to be the dictate of a soft, humane spirit. Fair-haired, with deep blue eyes, a snowy complexion and pensive manners, he glided by us, ever recalling to my mind the thought of seraphs. He was now fifteen years of age, but small of stature and slight of sinew, with a mournful expression and dejected eye, as though the burden of a great sorrow had been early laid upon him. During all my residence there, I had never heard him laugh loud or seen him run. He had none of that exhilaration and buoyancy which are so captivating in childhood. If he asked a favor of even a servant, he always expressed a hope that he had given no trouble. When a slave was to be whipped, he would go off and conceal himself somewhere, and never was he a spectator of any cruelty; yet he did not remonstrate with his father or intercede for the victims. No one had ever heard him speak against the diabolical acts of his father; yet all felt that he condemned them, for there was a silent expression of reproof in the earnest gaze which he sometimes gave him. I always fancied when the boy came near me, that there was about him a religion, which, like the wondrous virtue of the Saviour's garment, was manifest only when you approached near enough to touch it. It was not expressed in any open word, or made evident by any signal act, but, like the life-sustaining air which we daily breathe, we knew it only through its beneficent though invisible influence. CHAPTER XI. THE FLIGHT--YOUNG MASTER'S APPREHENSIONS--HIS CONVERSATION--AMY--EDIFYING TALK AMONG LADIES. I was not a little surprised to find young master now in an apparently earnest colloquy with Aunt Polly. A deep carnation spot burned upon his cheeks, and his soft eye was purple in its intensity. "What is the matter?" I asked. "Lor, chile," replied Aunt Polly, "Lindy can't be found nowhar." "Has every place been searched?" I inquired. "Yes," said little John, "and she is nowhere to be found." "Does master know it?" "Not yet, and I hope it may be kept from him for some time, at least two or three hours," he replied, with a mournful earnestness of tone.