The African is both pleased and cursed by being possessed of a very warm heart, and tender and loving affections. This is indeed a blessing and a curse at one and the same time. We need not go far for the proof, for I myself am a living witness to the same, and here I was at New Orleans after my dearly-beloved and tender-hearted mother, whom I was unable to live without; and then behold what I have suffered for the want of her for more than two years—wrenched from me by the diabolical ways of slavery, and the malice and spite of Mrs. Jackson! If my pinings and regrets have been so great, longing day and night after my dear mother, how much worse must that dear mother have felt for the loss of me? I dare not even look at the picture! But our prayers have been heard by the Lord; for He always hears those who love Him, and the hour for the prayer-meeting is drawing nigh; the shades of night are at last falling upon the long autumn day, and I find myself in the dusk in the neighborhood of the A. M. E. Church, watching for the approach of my mother, as maiden never waited for the coming of her lover advancing among the trees to the well-known trysting-place. All things come to those who wait, and here she comes at last! She is as sweet and graceful as ever, and her step as light as the greyhound’s! I advanced to meet her, first looking cautiously around into the increasing darkness, that no other was too near. The over-hanging trees favored our meeting as I came up to her, and whispered softly in her ear, "Mother!" We took each other by the hand, and kissed one another, when she hurriedly drew me round into a side entrance to the basement and rear of the church, where, entering a small classroom which would not be used for the night, we sat down together, had one very long and close embrace, and the happiness of that blessed and speechless half hour seemed to me to equal all that which might be called out of an ordinary lifetime. "Sweet the moments, rich in blessing, which within thy courts I spend!" The remaining hour was passed in conversation, during which we gave and received a complete history of the time that had elapsed since the time mother was sold down the river. "There will be no difficulty whatever about my getting away. They are old people, and have not the remotest idea that I would ever make the attempt. The best time for us to leave will be at this hour a week to-night, and, my dear daughter, there is a big leather trunk that is called mine, and which stands in my little bed-room upstairs, in an out-of-the-way wing of the house, which I will manage to send empty to your lodgings, whither I will send or bring my entire wardrobe myself. I must not go without clothes, as they will be both necessary and useful for me for years to come, if God my life shall spare. In the meantime write Tom and give him all my love, and tell him when he may expect us at home."