My tale draws to an end. Let it not grow tedious in its last pages. In one word, in a week or so after our landing we started on a short journey of thirty miles or so over a somewhat rough road. Our journey took us five hours. It was about three o'clock in the afternoon when we arrived. First there was a large wooden house of two storeys painted white; in the front a long and deep veranda--meaning a place covered over and protected from the sun by the roof and hangings at the side and in the front. Before the house was a flower-garden; at the back was a kitchen garden and orchard; the house was well and solidly furnished; all round the house lay fields of tobacco on which black people were working; on the steps of the veranda; in the garden; under the trees played in the warm sun the little naked negro children. 'Where are we?' asked Jenny, looking round her. I assisted her to get out of the waggon--it was little better--in which we had made our journey. I led her into the house. In the principal room there was a long table laid as if for dinner. At the head was an armchair carved, I should think, in the sixteenth century, or earlier; it was a kind of throne with a coat of arms carved, gilded, and coloured upon it; the shield of the late occupant of the estate, recently dead. I led Jenny to the head of the table. I placed her in the throne. 'Madame,' I said, 'this house is yours; these gardens are yours; this estate is yours; and we, if you please, are your most humble servants to command.' So I bent one knee and kissed her hand. 'Your most humble, obedient and grateful servants,' said Alice, following my example. So we all did homage, but our Queen and mistress hid her face in her handkerchief and for a while she could not speak. Thus began our new life, in which we all vied with each other in making Jenny feel that she was our mistress. We called her Madame; we made way for her; we flew to obey her; the overseers were instructed to report to her, personally, as to the condition of the field and the conduct of the slaves--there were no white servants on the estate; the slaves themselves looked to Madame as their owner, their mistress, and their friend.