He knew that his present situation was uncommonly favorable; but the idea of being a slave for life became more and more hateful to him. He had not been in Baltimore quite four years when an event occurred which proved to him the extreme uncertainty of a slave's condition, even when circumstances seemed the most favorable. His old master, Captain Anthony, died; and his slaves were to be divided between his son Andrew and his daughter Mrs. Lucretia Auld. Frederick was in terror lest it should be decided that he belonged to Andrew, who was a confirmed drunkard, and excessively cruel to the slaves. It was a month before the division of the estate was decided by law; and the anxiety of his mind was so great that it seemed to him half a year. He felt as if saved from sentence of death, when he was informed that he belonged to Mrs. Lucretia, who had been kind to him in his hungry boyhood. As she had no occasion for his services, it was agreed that he should remain in Mr. Hugh Auld's family; a circumstance which pleased Master Tom and his mother about as much as it did Freddy. But in a short time he was again painfully reminded of the uncertainty of his condition. Mrs. Lucretia and her brother Andrew both died, each of them leaving one child. Neither Captain Anthony nor his children left any of the slaves free. Even Frederick's old grandmother, who had nursed her master when he was a baby, waited upon him through his boyhood, worked faithfully for him during all her life, and reared up a multitude of children and grandchildren to toil for him,--even she was left in Slavery, with no provision made for her. The children she had tended so lovingly were sold, or let out in distant places; all were unable to write to inform her where they had gone; all were unable to help her, because they were not allowed to have their own earnings. When her old master and his children were dead, the owners of the property thought Gran'ma Betty was too old to be of any further use; so they put up a hut with a mud chimney in the woods, and left her there to find food for herself as she could, with no mortal to render her any service in her dying hour. This brutal proceeding increased the bitterness of Frederick's feeling against Slavery.