"No pass?" inquired the man, sternly. "'Tis easy enough to see what YOU are, then. A runaway!" said he, turning to a man at his right hand, "make her fast." Frightened and trembling, Tidy tried to run, but it was of no use; a strong hand seized her slender arm, and held her securely. Then her sight seemed to fail her, she grew dizzy, and fell fainting on the deck. A crowd gathered about her. They remarked her light skin and delicate features, her ladylike form and neat dress. Could she be a slave? they asked. Would such a child as she appeared to be attempt to gain her liberty? They dashed water on her head, and, as her consciousness returned, she saw the faces of those two pleasant Scotch gentlemen, who had rode with her the day before all the way from Virginia, looking kindly and pitifully upon her. "If you had only told us," they said, "we could have helped you." But there was no friend or helper in that terrible hour, and poor Tidy, weeping and almost heart-broken, was carried back to Baltimore, and thrown into the SLAVE-JAIL. CHAPTER XIII. A LONG JOURNEY. IF I pronounce this disastrous event in Tidy's life another link in the chain of loving-kindness by which God was leading her to himself, perhaps you will wonder. But, my dear children, adversities are designed for this very purpose, and are all directed in infinite love and wisdom for our good. Tidy had prayed that she might be free, and the Lord heard, and meant to answer her prayer. He meant not only to give her the liberty she sought, but, more than that, to make her soul free in Christ Jesus; but there were some things she needed to learn first. She was not prepared yet to use her personal liberty rightly, nor did she at all appreciate or desire that other and better freedom. Therefore the Lord disappointed her at this time, and turned the course of her life, as it were, upside down, that by painful experiences and narrow straits she might learn what an all-sufficient Friend he could be to her; that she might learn too the sinfulness of her own heart, and his free grace and mercy for her pardon and salvation. God "leads the blind in the way they know not." Tidy knew nothing of the method by which he was guiding her, and when she found her hopes crushed, and herself crouching, forlorn and friendless, weary and half-famished, in a prison, she gave up all for lost. She felt indeed cast off and forsaken. For hours she sat and cried despairingly, the pretty dress crumpled and stained with tears, and the hat which had been so much admired trampled under foot. Shame, grief, and fear of what was to come drove her almost to distraction.