“I thought she would strike you agreeably,” replied Mrs. Delano.  “Her beauty and gracefulness attracted me the first time I saw her; and afterward I was still more taken by her extremely naive manner.  She has been brought up in seclusion as complete as Miranda’s on the enchanted island; and there is no resisting the charm of her impulsive naturalness.  But, if you please, I will now explain the note I sent to you this morning.  I heard some months ago that you had joined the Anti-Slavery Society.”

“And did you send for me hoping to convert me from the error of my ways?” inquired he, smiling.

“On the contrary, I sent for you to consult concerning a slave in whom I am interested.”

“You, Mrs. Delano!” he exclaimed, in a tone of great surprise.

“You may well think it strange,” she replied, “knowing, as you do, how bitterly both my father and my husband were opposed to the anti-slavery agitation, and how entirely apart my own life has been from anything of that sort.  But while I was at the South this winter, I heard of a case which greatly interested my feelings.  A wealthy American merchant in New Orleans became strongly attached to a beautiful quadroon, who was both the daughter and the slave of a Spanish planter.  Her father became involved in some pecuniary trouble, and sold his daughter to the American merchant, knowing that they were mutually attached.  Her bondage was merely nominal, for the tie of affection remained constant between them as long as she lived; and he would have married her if such marriages had been legal in Louisiana.  By some unaccountable carelessness, he neglected to manumit her.  She left two handsome and accomplished daughters, who always supposed their mother to be a Spanish lady, and the wedded wife of their father.  But he died insolvent, and, to their great dismay, they found themselves claimed as slaves under the Southern law, that ’the child follows the condition of the mother.’  A Southern gentleman, who was in love with the eldest, married her privately, and smuggled them both away to Nassau.  After a while he went there to meet them, having previously succeeded in buying them of the creditors.  But his conduct toward the younger was so base, that she absconded.  The question I wish to ask of you is, whether, if he should find her in the Free States, he could claim her as his slave, and have his claim allowed by law.”

“Not if he sent them to Nassau,” replied Mr. Percival.  “British soil has the enviable distinction of making free whosoever touches it.”

“But he afterward brought them back to an island between Georgia and South Carolina,” said Mrs. Delano.  “The eldest proved a most loving and faithful wife, and to this day has no suspicion of his designs with regard to her sister.”

“If he married her before he went to Nassau, the ceremony is not binding,” rejoined Mr. Percival; “for no marriage with a slave is legal in the Southern States.”