When we were seated, I said to Scip, ’What induced you to lay hands on the Colonel?  It is death, you know, if he enforces the law.’

’I knows dat, massa; I knows dat; but I had to do it.  Dat Moye am de ole debil, but de folks round har wud hab turned on de Cunnel, shore, ef he’d killed him.  Dey don’t like de Cunnel; dey say he’m a stuck-up seshener.’

‘The Colonel, then, has befriended you at some time?’

’No, no, sar; ’twarn’t dat; dough I’se know’d him a long w’ile,—­eber sense my ole massa fotched me from de Habana,—­but ‘twarn’t dat.’

‘Then why did you do it?’

The black hesitated a moment, and glanced at the old negress, then said,—­

’You see, massa, w’en I fuss come to Charles’n, a pore little ting, wid no friend in all de worle, dis ole aunty war a mudder to me.  She nussed de Cunnel; he am jess like her own chile, and I know’d ’twud kill her ef he got hisself enter trubble.’

I noticed certain convulsive twitchings about the corners of the old woman’s mouth as she rose from her seat, threw her arms around Scip, and, in words broken by sobs, faltered out,—­

’You am my chile; I loves you better dan Massa Davy—­better dan all de worle.’

The scene, had they not been black, would have been one for a painter.

‘You were the Colonel’s nurse, Aunty,’ I said, when she had regained her composure.  ‘Have you always lived with him?’

’Yas, sar, allers; I nussed him, and den de chil’ren—­all ob ’em.’

‘All the children?  I thought the Colonel had but one—­Miss Clara.’

‘Wal, he habn’t, massa, only de boys.’

‘What boys?  I never heard he had sons.’

’Neber heerd of young Massa Davy, nor Massa Tommy!  Hain’t you seed
Massa Tommy, sar?’

‘Tommy!  I was told he was Madam P——­’s son.’

‘So he am; Massa Davy had her long afore he had missus.’

The truth flashed upon me; but could it be possible?  Was I in South Carolina or in Utah?

‘Who is Madam P——?’ I asked.

The old woman hesitated a moment, as if in doubt whether she had not said too much; but Scip quietly replied,—­

‘She’m jess what aunty am—­de Cunnel’s slave!’

‘His slave! it can’t be possible; she is white!’

‘No, massa; she am brack, and de Cunnel’s slave!’

Not to weary the reader with a long repetition of negro-English, I will tell in brief what I gleaned from an hour’s conversation with the two blacks.

Madam P——­ was the daughter of Ex-Gov. ——­, of Virginia, by a quarteron woman.  She was born a slave, but was acknowledged as her father’s child, and reared in his family with his legitimate children.  When she was ten years of age her father died, and his estate proving insolvent, the land and negroes were brought under the hammer.  His daughter, never having been manumitted,