and there I learned music, French and embroidery, and what not; and when I was fourteen, I came out to my father’s funeral.  He died very suddenly, and when the property came to be settled, they found that there was scarcely enough to cover the debts; and when the creditors took an inventory of the property, I was set down in it.  My mother was a slave woman, and my father had always meant to set me free; but he had not done it, and so I was set down in the list.  I’d always known who I was, but never thought much about it.  Nobody ever expects that a strong, healthy man is going to die.  My father was a well man only four hours before he died;—­it was one of the first cholera cases in New Orleans.  The day after the funeral, my father’s wife took her children, and went up to her father’s plantation.  I thought they treated me strangely, but didn’t know.  There was a young lawyer who they left to settle the business; and he came every day, and was about the house, and spoke very politely to me.  He brought with him, one day, a young man, whom I thought the handsomest I had ever seen.  I shall never forget that evening.  I walked with him in the garden.  I was lonesome and full of sorrow, and he was so kind and gentle to me; and he told me that he had seen me before I went to the convent, and that he had loved me a great while, and that he would be my friend and protector;—­in short, though he didn’t tell me, he had paid two thousand dollars for me, and I was his property,—­I became his willingly, for I loved him.  Loved!” said the woman, stopping.  “O, how I did love that man!  How I love him now,—­and always shall, while I breathe!  He was so beautiful, so high, so noble!  He put me into a beautiful house, with servants, horses, and carriages, and furniture, and dresses.  Everything that money could buy, he gave me; but I didn’t set any value on all that,—­I only cared for him.  I loved him better than my God and my own soul, and, if I tried, I couldn’t do any other way from what he wanted me to.

“I wanted only one thing—­I did want him to marry me.  I thought, if he loved me as he said he did, and if I was what he seemed to think I was, he would be willing to marry me and set me free.  But he convinced me that it would be impossible; and he told me that, if we were only faithful to each other, it was marriage before God.  If that is true, wasn’t I that man’s wife?  Wasn’t I faithful?  For seven years, didn’t I study every look and motion, and only live and breathe to please him?  He had the yellow fever, and for twenty days and nights I watched with him.  I alone,—­and gave him all his medicine, and did everything for him; and then he called me his good angel, and said I’d saved his life.  We had two beautiful children.  The first was a boy, and we called him Henry.  He was the image of his father,—­he had such beautiful eyes, such a forehead, and his hair hung all in curls around it; and he had all his father’s spirit, and