ONE MORNING, while Miss Ophelia was busy in some of her domestic cares, St. Clare's voice was heard calling her at the foot of the stairs.

  "Come down here, Cousin; I've something to show you."

  "What is it?" said Miss Ophelia, coming down, with her sewing in her hand.

  "I have made a purchase for your department—see here," said St. Clare; and with the word, he pulled along a little negro girl, about eight or nine years of age.

  She was one of the blackest of her race; and her round, shining eyes, glittering as glass beads, moved with quick and restless glances over everything in the room. Her woolly hair was braided in sundry little tails, which stuck out in every direction. The expression of her face was an odd mixture of shrewdness and cunning, over which was oddly drawn, like a kind of veil, an expression of the most doleful gravity and solemnity. She was dressed in a single filthy garment, in rags, and made of bagging, and she stood with her hands demurely folded before her.

  "Augustine, what in the world have you brought that thing here for?" asked Miss Ophelia.

  "For you to educate, to be sure, and train in the way she should go. Here, Topsy," he added, "give us a song, now, and show us some of your dancing."

  The black, glassy eyes glittered with a kind of wicked drollery, and the thing struck up, in a clear, shrill voice, an odd negro melody, to which she kept time with her hands and feet, spinning round in a wild, fantastic sort of time, and finally turning a somersault or two, and giving a prolonged closing note, she came suddenly down on the carpet, and stood with her hands folded, and a most sanctimonious expression of meekness and solemnity over her face, only broken by the cunning glances which she shot askance from the corners of her eyes.

  Miss Ophelia stood silent, perfectly paralyzed with amazement. St. Clare, like a mischievous fellow, as he was, appeared to enjoy her astonishment; and, addressing the child again, said:

  "Topsy, this is your new mistress. I am going to give you up to her; see now that you behave yourself."

  "Yes, mas'r," said Topsy, with sanctimonious gravity, her wicked eyes twinkling as she spoke.

  "You're going to be good, Topsy; you understand," said St. Clare.

  "O, yes, mas'r," answered Topsy.

  "Now, Augustine, what upon earth is this for?" said Miss Ophelia.

  "For you to educate—didn't I tell you? You're always preaching about educating?"

  "I don't want her, I am sure. I have more to do with them now that I want to have."

  "That's you Christians all over! You get up a society, and get some poor missionary to spend all his days among just such heathen. But let me see one of you that would take the labor of their conversion on yourselves! No when it comes to that, it's too much care, and so on."

  "I didn't think of it in that way," said Miss Ophelia, evidently softening. "Well, it might be real missionary work," she said, looking rather more favorably on the child.

  St. Clare had touched the right string. Miss Ophelia's conscientiousness was ever on the alert. In a moment, she said, soberly, "Well, I'll do what I can with her."

  Sitting down before her, she began to question her.

  "How old are you, Topsy?"

  "Dunno, missis."

  "Don't know how old you are? Didn't anybody ever tell you? Who was your mother?"

  "Never had none," said the child with a grin.

  "Never had any mother? What do you mean? Where were you born?"

  "Never was born!" persisted Topsy.

  "You mustn't answer me in that way. Tell me where you were born, and who your father and mother were."

  "Never was born," repeated the creature, more emphatically; "never had no father nor mother, nor nothin'. I was raised by a speculator, with lots of others. Old Aunt Sue used to take car on us."

  "Have you ever heard anything about God, Topsy?"

  The child looked bewildered, but grinned as usual.

  "Do you know who made you?"

  "Nobody, as I knows on," said the child, with a short laugh. "I s'pect I grow'd. Don't think nobody ever made me."

  When Miss Ophelia rose from this encouraging colloquy, St. Clare was leaning over the back of her chair.

  "You'll find virgin soil there, Cousin; put in your own ideas—you won't find many to pull up."

  Miss Ophelia began with Topsy by taking her into her chamber, the first

  Behold then, Topsy, arrayed in a clean gown, standing before Miss Ophelia, with an expression of solemnity well befitting a funeral.

  "Now, Topsy, I am going to show you how my bed is to be made. You must learn exactly how to do it."

  "Yes, ma'am," said Topsy, with a deep sigh, and a face of woeful earnestness.

  "Now, Topsy, look here; this is the hem of the sheet—this is the right side of the sheet, and this is the wrong; will you remember?"

  "Yes, ma'am," replied Topsy, with another sigh, but during the time when the good lady's back was turned, the young disciple contrived to snatch a pair of gloves, and a ribbon, which she adroitly slipped into her sleeves.

  "Now, Topsy, let me see you do this," said Miss Ophelia, pulling off the clothes, and seating herself.

  Topsy, with great gravity and adroitness, went through the exercise completely to Miss Ophelia's satisfaction. By an unlucky slip, however, a fragment of the ribbon hung out of one of her sleeves, just as she was finishing, and caught Miss Ophelia's attention. Instantly she pounced upon it. "What's this? You naughty, wicked child—you've been stealing this!"

  "Laws! why, dat ar's Miss Feely's ribbon, ain't it? How could it a got caught up my sleeve?"

  "Topsy, you naugthy girl, don't you tell me a lie—you stole that ribbon."

  "Missis, I declar for't. I didn't—never seed it till dis yer blessed minnit."

  "Topsy," said Miss Ophelia, "don't you know it is wicked to tell lies?"

  "I never tells no lies, Miss Feely," said Topsy, with virtuous gravity. "It's jest the truth I've been a tellin' now, and it ain't nothin' else."

  "Topsy, I shall have to whip you, if you tell me lies."

  "Laws, missis, if you was to whip me all day, I couldn't say no other way. I never seed dat ar—it must a got caught in my sleeve," said Topsy, beginning to blubber. "Miss Feely must a left it on the bed, and it got caught in the clothes and so got in my sleeve," she added.

  Miss Ophelia was so indignant at this barefaced lie, that she caught the child and shook her.

  "Don't you tell me that again!"

  The shake brought the gloves to the floor, from the other sleeve.

  "There, you!" said Miss Ophelia, "will you tell me now, you didn't take the ribbon?"

  Topsy now confessed to the gloves, but persisted that she did not take the ribbon.

  "Now, Topsy," said Miss Ophelia, "if you'll confess all about it, I won't

  whip you this time." Thus adjured, Topsy confessed to the ribbon and gloves, with woful protestations of penitence.

  "Well, now, tell me. I know you must have taken other things since you have been in the house, for I let you run about all day yesterday. Now tell me if you took anything else, and I shan't whip you."

  "Laws, missis! I took Miss Eva's red thing she wars on her neck."

  "You did, you naughty child! Well, what else?"

  "I took Rosa's yerrings—them red ones."

  "Go bring them to me this minute, both of them. "

  "Laws, missis, I can't—they's burnt up."

  "Burnt up—what a story! Go get them, or I'll whip you."

  Topsy with loud protestations and tears and groans, declared that she could not. "They's burnt up—they was."

  "What did you burn them for?" asked Miss Ophelia.

  "Cause I's wicked—I is. I's mighty wicked, any how. I can't help it."

  Just at this moment Eva entered the room with the identical coral necklace on her neck.

  "Why, Eva, where did you get your necklace?" said Miss Ophelia.

  "Get it? Why, I have had it on all day," replied Eva.

  Miss Ophelia looked perfectly bewildered; the more so as Rosa, a young quadroon maid, at that instant, came into the room, wearing the coral ear-drops.

  "I'm sure I can't tell anything what to do with such a child!" she said.

  "What in the world did you tell me you took those things for, Topsy?"

  "Why, missis said I must 'fess, and I couldn't think of nothin' else to 'fess," said Topsy, rubbing her eyes.

  "But, of course, I didn't want you to confess things you didn't do," said Miss Ophelia; "that's telling a lie, just as much as the other."

  "Laws, now is it?" said Topsy, with an air of innocent wonder.

  "La, there ain't any such thing as truth in that limb," said Rosa, looking indignantly at Topsy. "If I was Mas'r St. Clare, I'd whip her till the blood run. I would—I'd let her catch it."

  "No, no, Rosa," said Eva, with an air of command, which the child could assume at times; "you mustn't talk so, Rosa. I can't bear to hear it."

  Eva stood looking at Topsy. "Poor Topsy, why need you steal?" she said, sweetly. "You are going to be taken good care of now. I'm sure I'd rather give you anything of mine, than have you steal it."

  It was the first word of kindness the child had ever heard in her life; and the sweet tone and manner struck strangely on the wild, rude heart, and a sparkle of something like a tear shone in her keen, round, glittering eye; but it was followed by a short laugh and the habitual grin.

  But what was to be done with Topsy? Miss Ophelia found the case a

  "Do as you think best about that," said St. Clare. "Only I'll make one suggestion: I've seen this child whipped with a poker, knocked down with the shovel or tongs, whichever came handy, and seeing that she is used to that style of treatment, I think your whippings will have to be pretty energetic, to make much impression."

  "I shall persevere, and try, and do the best I can," said Miss Ophelia; and after this she did labor with zeal on her new subject. She instituted regular hours and employments for her, and undertook to teach her to read and to sew. In the former art, the child was quick enough. She was very soon able to read plain reading, but the sewing was a more difficult matter. The confinement of sewing was her abomination; so she broke needles; she tangled, broke, or soiled her thread, or, with a sly movement, would throw a spool away altogether.

  Topsy was soon a noted character in the establishment. In her play hours, she invariably had every child in the establishment at her heels—open mouthed with admiration—not excepting Miss Eva, who appeared to be fascinated by her as a dove is some times charmed by a serpent.

  Topsy was smart and energetic in all her manual operations. Mortal hands could not lay a spread smoother, adjust pillows more acurately, sweep and dust and arrange things more perfectly, than Topsy, when she chose—but she did not very often choose. If Miss Ophelia had to busy herself about anything else, Topsy, instead of making the bed, would amuse herself with pulling off the pillow-cases, butting her woolly head among the pillows, till it would be grotesquely ornamented with feathers sticking out in various directions; she would climb the posts, and hang head downward from the tops; flourish the sheets and spreads all over the apartment; dress the bolster up in Miss Ophelia's night clothes, singing, whistling, and making grimaces at herself in the mirror.

  On one occasion, Miss Ophelia found Topsy with her very best scarlet India crape shawl wound round her head for a turban, going on with her rehearsals before the glass in great style—Miss Ophelia having, with carelessness unheard of in her, left the key for once in her drawer.

  "Topsy!" she would say, when at the end of all patience, "what makes you act so?"

  "Dunno, missis—I s'pects it's cause I's so wicked."

  "I don't know what I shall do with you, Topsy."

  "Law, missis, you must whip me; my ole missis allers whipped me. I ain't used to workin' unless I gets whipped."

  "Why, Topsy, I don't want to whip you. You can do well, if you've a mind to; what is the reason you won't?"

  "Laws, missis, I'm used to whippin'; I s'pects it's good for me."

  Miss Ophelia tried the recipe, and Topsy invariably made a terrible commotion, screaming, groaning, and imploring, though half an hour afterward, when roosted on some projection of the balcony, and surrounded by a flock of admiring "young uns" she would express the utmost comtempt of the whole affair.

  "Law, Miss Feely whip! wouldn't kill a skeeter, her whippin's. You oughter see how old mas'r made the flesh fly; old mas'r know'd how!"

  Topsy always made great capital of her own sins and enormities, evidently considering them as something peculiarly distinguishing.

  "Law, you niggers," she would say to some of her auditors. "Does you know you's all sinners? Well, you is—everybody is. White folks is sinners too—Miss Feely says so; but I s'pects niggers is the biggest ones; but lor! ye ain't any on ye up to me. I's so awful wicked there can't nobody do nothin' with me. I used to keep old missis a' swarin' at me half the time. I s'pects I's the wickedest critter in the world." Here Topsy would cut a somersault and come up brisk and shining on a higher perch, and evidently plume herself on the distinction.

  It will not be amiss to glance back for a little while, at Uncle Tom's cabin on the Kentucky farm, and see what has been taking place among those he had left behind.

  One afternoon Mr. and Mrs. Shelby sat together in the hall of their house. "Do you know," said Mrs. Shelby, "that Chloe has had a letter from Tom? He is down in Louisiana."

  "Ah, has she? Tom has found a friend there, it seems. How is the old boy?"

  "He has been bought by a very fine family, I should think," replied Mrs. Shelby. "He is kindly treated, and has not much to do."

  "Ah! well, I am glad of it—very glad," said Mr. Shelby, heartily. I hardly suppose Tom will ever want to come up here again."

  "On the contrary he inquires very anxiously," said Mrs. Shelby, "when the money for his redemption is to be raised."

  "I am sure I don't know," said Mr. Shelby. "Once get business running wrong, there does not seem to be any end to it. It's like jumping from one log to another, all through a swamp."

  "Don't you think we might in some way manage to raise that money? Poor Aunt Chloe! her heart is so set on it!"

  "I am sorry if it is. I think I was premature in promising. I'm not sure but it's the best way to tell Chloe, and let her make up her mind to it. Tom will have another wife in a year or two, and she had better take up with some one else."

  "Mr. Shelby, I have taught my people that their marriages are as sacred as ours. I could never think of giving Chloe such advice."

  At this moment the conversation was interrupted by the appearance of Aunt Chloe at the end of the veranda.

  "If you please, missis," said she.

  "Well, Chloe, what is it?" asked her mistress, rising and going to the end of the balcony.

  "If missis would come and look at this yer lot of poetry."

  Chloe had a particular fancy for calling poultry poetry—an application of language in which she always persisted, notwithstanding frequent corrections and advisings from the young members of the family.

  "La sakes!" she would say, "I can't see; one is jis as good as turry—poetry suthin' good anyhow;" and so poetry Chloe continued to call it.

  Mrs. Shelby smiled when she saw a prostrate lot of chickens and ducks, over which Chloe stood, with a very grave face of consideration.

  "I'm athinkin' whether missis would be havin' a chicken pie o' dese yer."

  "Really, Chloe, I don't care much. Serve them any way you like."

  Chloe stood handling them over abstractedly; it was quite evident that the chickens were not what she was thinking of. At last, with the short laugh with which her tribe often introduce a doubtful proposal, she said:

  "Laws, me missis! what should mas'r and missis be a troublin' theirselves 'bout de money, and not a usin' what's right in der hands?" and Chloe laughed again.

  "I don't understand you, Chloe," said Mrs. Shelby, nothing doubting, from Chloe's manner, that she had heard the conversation that had passed between her and her husband.

  "Why, laws me, missis!" said Chloe, laughing again, "other folks hires out der niggers and makes money on 'em! Don't keep sich a tribe eatin' 'em out of house and home."

  "Well, Chloe, whom do you propose that we should hire out?"

  "Laws! I ain't proposin' nothin'; only Sam he said der was one of dees yer perfectioners, dey call's 'em, in Louisville, said he wanted a good hand at cake and pastry; and said he'd give four dollars a week to one, he did."

  "Well Chloe?"

  "Well, laws, missis, I's thinkin', it's time Sally was put along to be doin' somethin.' Sally's been under my care, now dis some time, and she does most as well as me, considerin'; and if missis would only let me go, I would help fetch the money up. I ain't afraid to put my cake nor pies nother, 'long side no perfectioner's."

  "Confectioner's, Chloe."

  "Law sakes, missis! tain't no odds—words is so curis, can't never get 'em right! "

  "But, Chloe, do you want to leave your children?"

  "Laws, missis, de boys is big enough to do day's works; dey does well enough; and Sally she'll take de baby—she's such a peart young un, she won't take no lookin' arter."

  "Yes, you may go, Chloe; and your wages shall every cent of them be put aside for your husband's redemption."

  "Laws, if missis isn't too good! How many weeks is der in a year, now, missis?"

  "Fifty-two," answered Mrs. Shelby.

  "Laws! now, dere is? and four dollars for each on 'em. Why, how much'd dat ar be?"

  "Two hundred and eight dollars," said Mrs. Shelby.

  "Why-e!" said Chloe, with an accent of surprise and delight; "and how long would it take me to work it out, missis?"

  "Some four or five years, Chloe; but, then, you needn't do it all—I shall add something to it. But when do you expect to go?"

  "Well, I wa'n't spectin' nothin'; only Sam, he's gwine to de river with some colts, and he said I could go along with him. If missis was willin' I'd go with Sam to-morrow morning."

  "Well, Chloe, if Mr. Shelby is willing. I must speak to him."

  Aunt Chloe, delighted, went out to her cabin, to make her preparations.

  "Law sakes, Mas'r George I ye didn't know I's gwine to Louisville tomorrow!" she said to George, as, entering her cabin, he found her busy sorting over her baby's clothes. "But I'm gwine, Mas'r George—gwine to have four dollars a week, and missis is gwine to lay it all up, to buy back my old man again."

  "Whew!" said George. "How are you going?"

  "To-morrow wid Sam. And now, Mas'r George, I knows you'll jis sit down and write to my old man, and tell him all about it—won't ye?"

  "To be sure," said George; "Uncle Tom'll be right glad to hear from us. I'll go right in the house, for paper and ink."