The old feeling of insecurity, especially with regard to my children, often threw its dark shadow across my sunshine.  Mrs. Bruce offered me a home for Ellen; but pleasant as it would have been, I did not dare to accept it, for fear of offending the Hobbs family.  Their knowledge of my precarious situation placed me in their power; and I felt that it was important for me to keep on the right side of them, till, by dint of labor and economy, I could make a home for my children.  I was far from feeling satisfied with Ellen’s situation.  She was not well cared for.  She sometimes came to New York to visit me; but she generally brought a request from Mrs. Hobbs that I would buy her a pair of shoes, or some article of clothing.  This was accompanied by a promise of payment when Mr. Hobbs’s salary at the Custom House became due; but some how or other the pay-day never came.  Thus many dollars of my earnings were expended to keep my child comfortably clothed.  That, however, was a slight trouble, compared with the fear that their pecuniary embarrassments might induce them to sell my precious young daughter.  I knew they were in constant communication with Southerners, and had frequent opportunities to do it.  I have stated that when Dr. Flint put Ellen in jail, at two years old, she had an inflammation of the eyes, occasioned by measles.  This disease still troubled her; and kind Mrs. Bruce proposed that she should come to New York for a while, to be under the care of Dr. Elliott, a well known oculist.  It did not occur to me that there was any thing improper in a mother’s making such a request; but Mrs. Hobbs was very angry, and refused to let her go.  Situated as I was, it was not politic to insist upon it.  I made no complaint, but I longed to be entirely free to act a mother’s part towards my children.  The next time I went over to Brooklyn, Mrs. Hobbs, as if to apologize for her anger, told me she had employed her own physician to attend to Ellen’s eyes, and that she had refused my request because she did not consider it safe to trust her in New York.  I accepted the explanation in silence; but she had told me that my child belonged to her daughter, and I suspected that her real motive was a fear of my conveying her property away from her.  Perhaps I did her injustice; but my knowledge of Southerners made it difficult for me to feel otherwise.

Sweet and bitter were mixed in the cup of my life, and I was thankful that it had ceased to be entirely bitter.  I loved Mrs. Bruce’s babe.  When it laughed and crowed in my face, and twined its little tender arms confidingly about my neck, it made me think of the time when Benny and Ellen were babies, and my wounded heart was soothed.  One bright morning, as I stood at the window, tossing baby in my arms, my attention was attracted by a young man in sailor’s dress, who was closely observing every house as he passed.  I looked at him earnestly.  Could it be my brother William?  It must