"I'm so happy, ma'am. Everybody is so kind to me." And this was while the great ridges on her slender body, caused by her husband's brutal beatings, were still unhealed. In regard to this husband she did not hesitate to speak, though at first with tears. "Would it be wicked, ma'am, to let him think I belong to him now?" She asked this one morning when she was braiding her young mistress's abundant tresses and could keep her own face concealed. "What do you mean?" Marion was startled and spoke in a sharp voice. "I mean, ma'am, he's shut up now and can't get rum; and he was kind, once; and wouldn't he feel better if he knew that I cared for him a little?" "You said you did not care for him; that you never wanted to see him again. Would you go back to him? Would you submit to his ill treatment, his profanity and abuse?" Esther was silent, and glancing in the mirror, her mistress saw that her eyes were full of tears. At last she said, in a tone of deep sorrow,— "I'm sorry God heard me say that. I was angry at the bad rum, and I was afraid of being shut up in a cell with him. I—I asked Jesus to put my naughty feelings away. I—I found the place in your prayer-book, ma'am,—I mean the marrying place. It's solemn words, ma'am; I didn't know that marrying was such a solemn thing. I was too young, and I had no mother, and my mates thought it would be fun to be married, and I didn't remember that I should have to stay married whether I liked it or not and so when he praised me and said he loved me best of all the girls in our court, though they all wanted him, I said I'd go to the parson. I had no call, ma'am, to let him say that bad woman was my mother. She was old Nan, the worst woman among them all, but that is over now. I'd die before I'd do so naughty again, but, ma'am, the minister asked me those solemn words, and I said yes, so I've been thinking that," sighing heavily, "'for better for worse, till death us do part,' means that I do belong to him, ma'am and so I—" Her voice was stopped suddenly for she fell on her knees, and with her head hidden in her arms, sobbed without restraint. Marion's own tears flowed. As she told the story afterward to Mrs. Mitchell and Hepsey, "When I saw her in a perfect abandonment of grief, sobbing her heart out at the recollection of the man who had so abused his trust, I resolved that, if the law could prevent it, she never should live with him again. But at the same moment I felt for her such an increase of respect that folded her in my arms and kissed her." A few days after this Miss Howard was dressing to go out when Esther came forward, blushing painfully, and holding out an awkwardly folded paper, asked,— "May I go out, ma'am, to put this into the box at the corner?"