Annette speaks feebly, looks pale and sickly.  Her flaxen curls still dangle prettily upon her shoulders.  She expected her mother; that mother has not come.  The picture seems strange; she looks childishly and vacantly round,—­at the dealers, at Graspum, at the sheriff, at the familiar faces of the old plantation people.  She recognizes Harry, and would fain leap into his arms.  Nicholas, less moved by what is going on around him, hangs reluctantly behind, holding by the skirt of Annette’s frock.  He has lost that vivacity and pertness so characteristic on the plantation.  Happy picture of freedom’s love!  Happy picture of immortalised injustice!  Happy picture of everything that is unhappy!  How modest is the boast that we live to be free; and that in our virtuous freedom a child’s mother has been sold for losing her mind:  a faithful divine, strong with love for his fellow divines, is to be sold for his faith; the child-the daughter of the democrat-they say, will be sold from her democratic father.  The death-stinging enemy Washington and Jefferson sought to slaughter-to lay ever dead at their feet, has risen to life again.  Annette’s mother has fled to escape its poison.  We must pause! we must not discourse thus in our day, when the sordid web of trade is being drawn over the land by King Cotton.

The children, like all such doubtful stock, are considered very fancy, very choice of their kind.  It must be dressed in style to suit nice eyes at the shambles.

“Well! ye’r right interesting looking,” says the sheriff—­Messrs. Graspum and Co. look upon them with great concern, now and then interrupting with some observations upon their pedigree,—­taking them by the arms, and again rumpling their hair by rubbing his hands over their heads.  “Fix it up, trim; we must put them up along with the rest to-day.  It ’ll make Marston—­I pity the poor fellow—­show his hand on the question of their freedom.  Mr. sheriff, being sufficiently secured against harm, is quite indifferent about the latent phases of the suit.  He remarks, with great legal logic—­we mean legal slave logic—­that Marston must object to the sale when the children are on the stand.  It is very pretty kind a’ property, very like Marston—­will be as handsome as pictures when they grow up,” he says, ordering it put back to be got ready.

“Why didn’t my mother come?” the child whimpers, dewy tears decorating her eyes.  “Why won’t she come back and take me to the plantation again?  I want her to come back; I’ve waited so long.”  As she turns to follow the gaoler—­Nicholas still holds her by the skirt of her frock—­her flaxen curls again wave to and fro upon her shoulders, adding beauty to her childlike simplicity.  “You’ll grow to be something, one of these days, won’t ye, little dear?” says the gaoler, taking her by the hand.  She replies in those silent and touching arguments of the soul; she raises her soft blue eyes, and heaven fills them with tears, which she lifts her tiny hands to wipe away.