Flora, who felt her heart rising in her throat, tossed back her veil, and said, “Tom, don’t you know me?”

The negro started as if a ghost had risen before him.

“Now tell me where Missy Rosy has gone, and who went with her,” said she, coaxingly.

“Bress yer, Missy Flory! am yer alive!” exclaimed the bewildered negro.

Flora laughed, and, drawing off her glove, shook hands with him.  “Now you know I’m alive, Tom.  But don’t tell anybody.  Where’s Missy Rosy gone.”

“O Missy,” replied Tom, “dar am heap ob tings to tell.”

Mrs. Delano suggested that it was not a suitable place; and Tom said he must go home with his master’s carriage.  He told them he had obtained leave to go and see his wife Chloe that evening; and he promised to come to their hotel first.  So, with the general information that Missy Rosy and Tulee were safe, they parted for the present.

Tom’s communication in the evening was very long, and intensely interesting to his auditors; but it did not extend beyond a certain point.  He told of Rosa’s long and dangerous illness; of Chloe’s and Tulee’s patient praying and nursing; of the birth of the baby; of the sale to Mr. Bruteman; and of the process by which she escaped with Mr. Duroy.  Further than that he knew nothing.  He had never been in New Orleans afterward, and had never heard Mr. Fitzgerald speak of Rosa.

At that crisis in the conversation, Mrs. Delano summoned Mr. Jacobs, and requested him to ascertain when a steamboat would go to New Orleans.  Flora kissed her hand, with a glance full of gratitude.  Tom looked at her in a very earnest, embarrassed way, and said:  “Missis, am yer one ob dem Ab-lish-nishts dar in de Norf, dat Massa swars ’bout?”

Mrs. Delano turned toward Flora with a look of perplexity, and, having received an interpretation of the question, she smiled as she answered:  “I rather think I am half an Abolitionist, Tom.  But why do you wish to know?”

Tom went on to state, in “lingo” that had to be frequently explained, that he wanted to run away to the North, and that he could manage to do it if it were not for Chloe and the children.  He had been in hopes that Mrs. Fitzgerald would have taken her to the North to nurse her baby while she was gone to Europe.  In that case, he intended to follow after; and he thought some good people would lend them money to buy their little ones, and, both together, they could soon work off the debt.  But this project had been defeated by Mrs. Bell, who brought a white nurse from Boston, and carried her infant grandson back with her.

“Yer see, Missis,” said Tom, with a sly look, “dey tinks de niggers don’t none ob ’em wants dare freedom, so dey nebber totes ’em whar it be.”

Ever since that disappointment had occurred, he and his wife had resolved themselves into a committee of ways and means, but they had not yet devised any feasible mode of escape.  And now they were thrown into great consternation by the fact that a slave-trader had been to look at Chloe, because Mr. Fitzgerald wanted money to spend in Europe, and had sent orders to have some of his negroes sold.