"Mary," said I, "I love you. May I hope to gain your regard by any length of service? Allow me to hope, and I shall be content." "I must not listen to this language," she replied. "Do not hope. There is a barrier between us that cannot be removed. I cannot be yours. I am unworthy of your regard. Alas! I am a child of misfortune." "Then," said I, "my hopes of happiness are fled for ever. So young, so beautiful, with a soul so elevated as I know yours to be, you can have done nothing to render you unworthy of me. For heaven's sake, tell me what that fatal barrier is. Is it love?" "I thank you," she replied. "You do me but justice. A thought has never dwelt upon my mind for which I have cause to blush; but Nature has placed a gulf between you and me, you will not pass." She paused, and the tears swam in her eyes. "For mercy's sake, proceed!" I said. "_There is black blood in these veins_," she cried, in agony. A load was at once removed from my mind. I raised her hand to my lips:--"Mary, my love, this is no bar. I come from a country where the aristocracy of blood is unknown, where nothing degrades man in the eyes of his fellow-man but vice." Why more? Mary consented to be mine, and we were shortly after wed. I was blessed in the possession of one of the most gentle of beings. We had been married about six or seven weeks, when business called me from Charleston to one of the northern States. I resolved to take Mary with me, as I was to go by sea; and our arrangements were completed. The vessel was to sail on the following day. I was seated with her, enjoying the cool of the evening, when a stranger called and requested to see me on business of importance. I immediately went to him, and was struck with the coarseness of his manners, and his vulgar importance. I bowed, and asked his business. "You have a woman in this house," said he, "called Mary De Lyle, I guess." "I do not understand the purport of your question," said I. "What do you mean?" "My meaning is pretty clear," said he. "Mary De Lyle is in this house, and she is my property. If you offer to carry her out of the State, I will have her sent to jail, and you fined. That is right ahead, I guess." "Wretch," said I, in a voice hoarse with rage, "get out of my house, or I will crush you to death. Begone!" I believe I would have done him some fearful injury, had he not precipitately made his escape. In a frame of mind I want words to express, I hurried to Mary, and sank upon a seat, with my face buried in my hands. She, poor thing, came trembling to my side, and implored me to tell her what was the matter. I could only answer by my groans. At length, I looked imploringly in her face:-- "Mary, is it possible that you are a slave?" said I. She uttered a piercing shriek, and sank inanimate at my feet. I lifted her upon the sofa; but it was long before she gave symptoms of returning life.