prudent and proper limits the expression of my feelings at such a state of things?  And she had gone on from day to day enduring this agony, till I suppose its own intolerable pressure and M——­’s sweet countenance and gentle sympathising voice and manner had constrained her to lay down this great burden of sorrow at our feet.  I did not see Mr. ——­ until the evening; but in the meantime, meeting Mr. O——­, the overseer, with whom, as I believe I have already told you, we are living here, I asked him about Psyche, and who was her proprietor, when to my infinite surprise he told me that he had bought her and her children from Mr. K——­, who had offered them to him, saying that they would be rather troublesome to him than otherwise down where he was going; ‘and so,’ said Mr. O——­, ’as I had no objection to investing a little money that way, I bought them.’  With a heart much lightened I flew to tell poor Psyche the news, so that at any rate she might be relieved from the dread of any immediate separation from her husband.  You can imagine better than I can tell you what her sensations were; but she still renewed her prayer that I would, if possible, induce Mr. ——­ to purchase her, and I promised to do so.

Early the next morning, while I was still dressing, I was suddenly startled by hearing voices in loud tones in Mr. ——­’s dressing-room, which adjoins my bed-room, and the noise increasing until there was an absolute cry of despair uttered by some man.  I could restrain myself no longer, but opened the door of communication, and saw Joe, the young man, poor Psyche’s husband, raving almost in a state of frenzy, and in a voice broken with sobs and almost inarticulate with passion, reiterating his determination never to leave this plantation, never to go to Alabama, never to leave his old father and mother, his poor wife and children, and dashing his hat, which he was wringing like a cloth in his hands, upon the ground, he declared he would kill himself if he was compelled to follow Mr. K——.  I glanced from the poor wretch to Mr. ——­, who was standing, leaning against a table with his arms folded, occasionally uttering a few words of counsel to his slave to be quiet and not fret, and not make a fuss about what there was no help for.  I retreated immediately from the horrid scene, breathless with surprise and dismay, and stood for some time in my own room, with my heart and temples throbbing to such a degree that I could hardly support myself.  As soon as I recovered myself I again sought Mr. O——­, and enquired of him if he knew the cause of poor Joe’s distress.  He then told me that Mr. ——­, who is highly pleased with Mr. K——­’s past administration of his property, wished, on his departure for his newly-acquired slave plantation, to give him some token of his satisfaction, and had made him a present of the man Joe, who had just received the intelligence that he was to go down to Alabama with his new owner the next day, leaving father,