When I left that little wood, it was to seek a larger cover, and fields farther removed from the house.  It was dark before I thought of returning; all that time was passed in a species of mystical hallucination, in which the mind was lost in scenes foreign to those actually present.  I saw Grace’s sweet image everywhere; I heard her voice at every turn.  Now she was the infant I was permitted to drag in her little wagon, the earliest of all my impressions of that beloved sister; then, she was following me as I trundled my hoop; next came her little lessons in morals, and warnings against doing wrong, or some grave but gentle reproof for errors actually committed; after which, I saw her in the pride of young womanhood, lovely and fitted to be loved, the sharer of my confidence, and one capable of entering into all my plans of life.  How often that day did the murmuring of a brook or the humming of a bee become blended in my imagination with the song, the laugh, the call, or the prayers of that beloved sister whose spirit had ascended to heaven, and who was no more to mingle in my concerns or those of life!

At one time I had determined to pass the night abroad, and commune with the stars, each of which I fancied, in turn, as they began slowly to show themselves in the vault above, might be the abiding-place of the departed spirit.  If I thought so much and so intensely of Grace, I thought also of Lucy.  Nor was good Mr. Hardinge entirely forgotten.  I felt for their uneasiness, and saw it was my duty to return.  Neb, and two or three others of the blacks, had been looking for me in all directions but that in which I was; and I felt a melancholy pleasure as I occasionally saw these simple-minded creatures meet and converse.  Their gestures, their earnestness, their tears, for I could see that they were often weeping, indicated alike that they were speaking of their “young mistress;” how they spoke, I wanted no other communications to understand.

Ours had ever been a family of love.  My father, manly, affectionate, and strongly attached to my mother, was admirably suited to sustain that dominion of the heart which the last had established from her earliest days at Clawbonny.  This power of the feelings had insensibly extended itself to the slaves, who seldom failed to manifest how keenly alive they all were to the interests and happiness of their owners.  Among the negroes there was but one who was considered as fallen below his proper level, or who was regarded as an outcast.  This was an old fellow who bore the name of Vulcan, and who worked as a blacksmith on the skirts of the farm, having been named by my grandfather with the express intention of placing him at the anvil.  This fellow’s trade caused him to pass most of his youth in an adjacent village, or hamlet, where unfortunately he had acquired habits that unsuited him to live as those around him were accustomed to live.  He became in a measure alienated from us, drinking, and otherwise living a life that