WHILE WE MUST LEAVE TOM in the hands of his pesercutors, while we turn to pursue the fortunes of George Harris and his wife, whom we left in friendly hands, in a farmhouse on the roadside.

  Tom Loker we left groaning and tossing in a most immaculately clean Quaker bed, under the motherly supervision of Aunt Dorcas, who found him to the full as tractable a patient as a sick bison.

  Imagine a tall, dignified, spiritual woman, whose clean muslin cap shades waves of silvery hair, parted on a broad, clear forehead, which overarches thoughtful gray eyes. A snowy handkerchief is folded neatly across her bosom; her glossy brown silk rustles peacefully, as she glides up and down the chamber.

  "The devil!" cries Tom Loker, giving a great throw to the bedclothes.

  "I must request thee, Thomas, not to use such language," says Aunt Dorcas, as she quietly rearranged the bed.

  "That fellow and gal are here, I suppose," said he sullenly, after a pause.

  "They are," said Dorcas.

  "They'd better be off up the lake," said Tom; "the quicker the better."

  "Probably they will do so," said Dorcas, knitting peacefully.

  "And hark ye," said Tom; "we've got correspondents in Sandusky, that watch the boats for us. I don't care if I tell, now. I hope they will get away, just to spite Marks—the cursed puppy!"

  "Thomas!" said Dorcas.

  "I tell you, granny, if you bottle a fellow up too tight, I shall split," said Tom. "But about the gal—tell 'em to dress her up some way, so's to alter her looks. Her description's out in Sandusky."

  "We will attend to that matter," said Dorcas, with her customary composure, still knitting.

  As we at this place take leave of Tom Loker, we may as well say, that, having lain three weeks at the Quaker dwelling, sick with rheumatic fever, which set in, in company with his other afilictions, Tom rose from his bed a somewhat sadder and wiser man; and in place of slave-catching, betook himself to life in one of the new settlements, where his talents developed themselves more happily in trapping bears, wolves, and other inhabitats of the

  As Tom had informed them that their party would be looked for in Sandusky, it was thought best to divide them. Jim, with his old mother, was forwarded separately; and a night or two afterward, George and Eliza, with their child, were driven privately into Sandusky, and lodged beneath a hospitable roof, preparatory to taking their last passage on the lake.

  The night was now far spent, and the morning-star of liberty rose fair before them. Liberty! electric word! What is it? What is freedom to that young man, who sits there, with his arms folded over his broad chest, the tint of African blood in his cheeks, its dark fires in his eyes—what is freedom to George Harris? To him it is the right of a man to be a man, and not a brute; the right to call the wife of his bosom his wife, and to protect her from lawless violence; the right to protect and educate his child, the right to have a home of his own, a religion of his own, a character of his own, unsubject to the will of another. All these thoughts were rolling and seething in George's breast, as he was pensively leaning his head on his hand, watching his wife as she was adapting to her slender and pretty form the articles of man's attire. in which it was deemed safest she should make her escape.

  "Now for it," she said, as she stood before the glass, and shook down her silky abundance of black curly hair. "I say, George, it's almost a pity, isn't it? It's a pity it's all got to come off."

  Eliza turned to the glass, and the scissors glitiered, as one long lock after another was detached from her head.

  "There, now, that'll do," she said, taking up a hair brush; "now for a few fancy touches.

  "There, ain't I a pretty young fellow?" she said, turning around to her husband, laughing and blushing at the same time.

  "You always will be pretty, do what you will," said George.

  The door opened and a middle-aged woman entered, leading little Harry, dressed in girl's clothes.

  "What a pretty girl he makes," said Eliza, turning him round. "We will call him Harriet, you see—don't the name come nicely?"

  The child stood gravely regarding his mother in her new and strange attire, observing a profound silence.

  "Does Harry know mamma?" said Eliza, stretching her hands towards him.

  The child clung shyly to the woman.

  "Come, Eliza, do not try to coax him, when you know he's got to be kept away from you?" A hack now drove to the door, and the friendly family who had received the fugitives crowded around them with farewell greetings.

  The disguises the party had assumed were in accordance with the hints of Tom Loker. Mrs. Smyth, a woman from the settlement in Canada whither they were fleeing, being fortunately about crossing the lake to return thither, had consented to appear as the aunt of little Harry; and, in order to attach him to her, he had been allowed to remain, the last two days, under her sole charge; and an extreme amount of petting, joined to an indefinite amount of seed-cakes and candy, had cemented a very close attachment on the part of the young gentleman.

  The hack drove up to the wharf. The two young men, as they appeared, walked up the plank into the boat, Eliza gallantly giving her arm to Mrs. Smyth, and George attending to the baggage.

  George was standing at the captain's office, settling for his party, when he overheard two men talking by his side.

  "I've watched every one that came on board," said one, "and I know they are not on this boat."

  The speaker was the clerk of the boat. The man whom he addressed was our sometime friend, Marks.

  "You would scarcely know the woman from a white woman," said Marks. "The man is a very light mulatto; he has a brand on one of his hands."

  The hand with which George was taking the tickets and change trembled a little; but he turned coolly around, fixed an unconcerned glance on the face of the speaker, and walked leisurely toward another part of the boat, where Eliza stood waiting for him.

  Mrs. Smyth and Harry sought the ladies' cabin, where the dark beauty of the supposed little girl drew many admiring comments from the passengers.

  George had the satisfaction, as the bell rang out its farewell peal, to see Marks walk down the plank to the shore, and drew a long sigh of relief, when the boat had put a returnless distance between them.

  George and his wife stood arm in arm, as the boat neared the small town of Amherstberg, in Canada. His breath grew thick and short; a mist gathered before his eyes; he silently pressed the little hand that lay trembling on his arm. The bell rang; the boat stopped. Scarcely seeing what he did, he took out his baggage and gathered his little party. The little company were landed on the shore. They stood still till the boat had cleared; and then, with tears and embracings, the husband and wife, with their wondering child in their arms, knelt down and lifted up their hearts to God.