"My dear mother, don't be superstitious, if you do inherit a tendency in that direction from both sides of your ancestry. Forget that violent woman's curse; and whatever you do, don't make it fulfill itself, by believing in it. And believe that if any evil befall us, it will not have come from that angry woman's malediction. Why, if I thought that the imprecations of the angry and malignant could bring down curses from heaven upon the heads of the innocent, I should turn pagan, and worship beasts. Besides, as I said before, it was not her, but you, who was injured. And if any one could have had the right to utter maledictions, it was you; yet you never did it." "No, Heaven forbid! I took things as a matter of course; and though my heart was almost broken, I made no complaint, far less ventured on any reproach; for I am sure I thought master would do no great wrong; and I thought he acted much better than his neighbors, when he promised that you should be free, and should go to France, and learn a profession. But he broke that promise. Oh, he broke his pledged word and honor, and the woman's curse is surely falling." "Think no more of that, mother; she had no power to curse you." "I never did her harm, in deed, or word, or thought. I never deserved it from her, whatever I deserved from Heaven. It was the old Bible story of Abraham and Sarah and Hagar acted over again on this plantation, only this was a great deal worse, as I look upon it now, though then I thought it was all right, hard as it was to bear. I had been keeping house for master four years, and you were nearly a year old, when one winter he went to New Orleans, to spend a month or two. He stayed the whole winter. I did not know that he married there, for he never wrote to tell me, and I never read a newspaper. How should either happen, when I could not read nor write? Well, in the spring, instead of coming home, he sent a message with some directions to the overseer, but no word about his being married, only that he was going abroad for awhile. Well, he went, and he stayed away for a year. And then he came home by way of New Orleans, where he stopped to buy furniture, that he sent up before him, in charge of an upholsterer, who was to fix it all up. But still no word of his marriage. I might have guessed something, from the refurnishing of the house; but I did not, because my heart was so taken up with the thought that master was coming home, and how nice everything should be for him when he should come. I afterward knew that my master had written to Mr. Hewitt, to come over and tell me to prepare to meet my new mistress; but Mr. Hewitt, for the sake of what he called the joke, left me in ignorance, so that madam might find me and you when she should come. Well, I don't want to talk any more about this. The afternoon that master was expected to arrive, I was on the watch. I was standing on the portico, holding you by the hand, when I saw the carriage approach.