Thus challenged, we of course sought an interview with the slave, and informed her that, having been brought by her master into the free States, she was, by the laws of the land, set at liberty. “No, I am not, gentlemen,” was her prompt reply. We adduced cases and quoted authorities to establish our assertion that she was free. But she significantly shook her head, and still insisted that the examples and the legal decisions did not reach her case. “For,” said she, “I promised mistress that I would go back with her and the children.” Mr. Abdy undertook to argue with her that such a promise was not binding. He had been drilled in the moral philosophy of Dr. Paley, and in that debate seemed to be possessed of its spirit. But he failed to make any visible impression upon the woman. She had _bound_ herself by a promise to her mistress that she would not leave her, and that promise had fastened upon her conscience an obligation from which she could not be persuaded that even her natural right to liberty could exonerate her. Mr. Abdy at last was impatient with her, and said in his haste: “Is it possible that you do not wish to be free?” She replied with solemn earnestness: “Was there ever a slave that did not wish to be free? I long for liberty. I will get out of slavery if I can the day after I have returned, but go back I must because I _promised_ that I would.” At this we desisted from our endeavor to induce her to take the boon that was apparently within her reach. We could not but feel a profound respect for that moral sensibility, which would not allow her to embrace even her freedom at the expense of violating a promise. The next morning at an early hour the slaveholder, with his wife and children, drove off, leaving the slave-woman and their heaviest trunk to be brought on after them in the stage-coach. We could not refrain from again trying to persuade her to remain and be free. We told her that her master had given us leave to persuade her, if we could. She pointed to the trunk and to a very valuable gold watch and chain, which her mistress had committed to her care, and insisted that fidelity to a trust was of more consequence to her soul even than the attainment of liberty. Mr. Abdy offered to take the trunk and watch into his charge, follow her master, and deliver them into his hands. But she could not be made to see that in this there would be no violation of her duty; and then her own person, that too she had promised should be returned to the home of her master. And much as she longed for liberty, she longed for a clear conscience more.