Ellen was the daughter of her master, but her mother was a slave. Her handsome dark eyes were apt to attract attention; her hair was straight, and her skin was so nearly white that strangers often mistook her for one of her master's own white family. This was very vexatious to her mistress, who treated her so harshly that the poor child had no comfort of her life. When she was eleven years old she was given to a daughter of her mistress, who was about to be married to a gentleman living in Macon. It was painful to part from her poor mother, but she was glad to get away from the incessant cruelty of her old mistress. Her new mistress proved more humane. In her service Ellen grew up without being exposed to some of the most degrading influences of Slavery. She and the intelligent young cabinet-maker formed an attachment for each other soon after they were acquainted. But Ellen had seen so much of the separation of families in Slavery, that she was very reluctant to marry. Whenever William said anything about it, she reminded him that they were both slaves; and that if they were married either of their masters could separate them whenever they chose. William remembered, with bitterness of heart, how his father and mother and brother had been sold, and how his sister had been torn from him without his being allowed to bid her good by. He had not been tortured in his own person, but he had seen other slaves cruelly whipped and branded with hot iron, hunted and torn by bloodhounds, and even burned alive, merely for trying to get their freedom. In view of these things, he had a great horror of bringing children into the world to be slaves. He and Ellen often talked together about escaping to the North and being married there. But they reflected that they would have to travel a thousand miles before they could reach any Free State. They knew that bloodhounds and slave-hunters would be put upon their track; that if they were taken, they would be subjected to terrible tortures; and that, even if they succeeded in reaching the Free States, they would still be in danger of being delivered up to their masters. They talked over a variety of plans; but the prospect of escape seemed so discouraging, that at last they concluded to ask their owner's consent to their marriage; and they resolved to be as contented as they could in the situation to which they were born. But they were too intelligent not to know that a great wrong was done to them by keeping them in slavery. William shuddered to think into what cruel and licentious hands his dear wife might fall if she should be sold by her present owners; and Ellen was filled with great anguish whenever she thought what might happen to her children, if she should be a mother. They were always thinking and talking about freedom, and they often prayed earnestly to God that some way of escape might be opened for them.