The widow, almost ready to faint, made her way to her carriage, and was driven off. Some of the company shrugged their shoulders, while others uttered a low, significant whistle. Ike, who maintained his dogged, sulky look, picked up his bundle, and was remanded to the warehouse, there to be kept till claimed. “Now, gentlemen,” said the auctioneer, “I have to call your attention to the primest fancy article that it has ever been my good fortin to put under the hammer. Lot Number 5 is the quadroon gal, Nelly. Bring her on.” Here a negro assistant led out, with his hand on her shoulder, a girl apparently not more than eighteen years of age, and helped her on the cotton-bale. She was modestly clad in an old but neatly-fitting black silk gown, and, notwithstanding the heat, wore round her shoulders a checked woollen shawl. Her hair was straight. Evidently she derived her blood chiefly from white ancestors. She was very pretty; and had a neat, compact figure, in which the tendency to plumpness, common among the quadroons, was not yet too marked for grace. It was apparently the first time she had ever been put up for sale; for she had a scared, deprecatory look, strangely accompanied with a smile put on for the purpose of propitiating some well-disposed master, if such there might be among the crowd. “Now, gentlemen,” said Ripper, “here is Lot Number 5. It speaks for itself, and needs no puffin’ from me. But thar is a little story connected with Nelly. She was the property of Miss Pettigrew, down in Plaquemine, and always thought she’d be free as soon as her missis died. But her missis fell under conviction jest afore her death, and ordered in her will that Nelly should be sold, and the proceeds paid over to the fund for the support of indigent young men studyin’ for the ministry. So, gentlemen, in biddin’ lib’rally for this superior lot, you’ll have the satisfaction of forruding a most-er praiseworthy and pious objek.” “Make her drop her shawl,” said a gray-haired man, with a blotched, unwholesome skin, and with dirty deposits of stale tobacco-juice at the corners of his mouth. “Certainly, Mr. Tibbs,” said Ripper, pulling off the girl’s shawl as if he had been uncovering a sample of Sea-Island cotton. “She has been a lady’s maid, and nothin’ else, I can assure you, gentlemen. Small hands and feet, yer see. Look at that neck and them shoulders! Her missis has kept her very strict; and the executor, by whose order she is sold, warrants you, gentlemen, she has never been _enceinte_. A very nice, good-natured, correct, and capable gal. Will never give her owner any trouble, and will ollerz do her best to please. Shall I start her at a thousand dollars?”