Only one discordant note disturbed the chorus which nature sang to love. Near the house where Zaida’s master dwelt, there lived a Dutchman and his wife, who were notoriously cruel to their slaves. Zaida recounted some shocking instances of severity, and especially expressed pity for a girl little older than herself, who had formerly belonged to a very kind master and mistress. When they died, she was sold at auction, and had the misfortune to pass into the hands of their inhuman neighbour, whose wife was jealous, and lost no opportunity of tormenting her. When Jan was singing some of the plaintive melodies to which his own taste always inclined him, or when, to amuse the merry Zaida, he imitated Chinese jingle jangles, sometimes the sound of the lash, accompanied with shrieks, would break in upon the music or the merriment, and put their spirits out of tune. Nature had made Jan more sensitive than reflective; and he had been brought up so like a humming-bird among flowers, that he had never thought any thing about his own liabilities as a slave. Now, for the first time, it occurred to him, “What if _my_ master and mistress should die, and _I_ should be sold?” An English family lived very near Madame Van der Veen’s, and, as both were musical, an intimacy had grown up between them. The father and mother of this family were very strongly opposed to slavery, and not unfrequently discussed the subject. Jan, as he passed in and out of the parlour, waiting upon the guests, had been accustomed to hear these conversations as though he heard them not. In fact, he often wished the old Englishman would stop talking, and give his son an opportunity to accompany Madame Van der Veen’s piano with his flute. But after those lashes and shrieks had waked up his mind to the possibility of auction and transfer, he listened more attentively, and carried with him into riper years the memory of many things he heard.