The gaoler, protruding his head from a second-story window, like a mop in a rain storm, enquires if it is requisite to dress the children in their very best shine.  It is evident he merely views them as two bales of merchandise.

The sheriff, angrily, says, “Yes!  I told you that already.  Make them look as bright as two new pins.”  His honour has been contemplating how they will be mere pins in the market,—­pins to bolt the doors of justice, pins to play men into Congress, pins to play men out of Congress, pins to play a President into the White House.

An old negress, one of the plantation nurses, is called into service.  She commences the process of preparing them for market.  They are nicely washed, dressed in clean clothes; they shine out as bright and white as anybody’s children.  Their heads look so sleek, their hair is so nicely combed, so nicely parted, so nicely curled.  The old slave loves them,—­she loved their father.  Her skill has been lavished upon them,—­they look as choice and interesting as the human property of any democratic gentleman can be expected to do.  Let us be patriotic, let us be law-loving, patient law-abiding citizens, loving that law of our free country which puts them under the man-vender’s hammer,—­say our peace-abiding neighbours.

The gaoler has not been long in getting Annette and Nicholas ready.  He brings them forward, so neatly and prettily dressed:  he places them among the “gang.”  But they are disputed property:  hence all that ingenuity which the system engenders for the advancement of dealers is brought into use to defeat the attempt to assert their freedom.  Romescos declares it no difficult matter to do this:  he has the deadly weapon in his possession; he can work (shuffle) the debt into Graspum’s hands, and he can supply the proof to convict.  By this very desirable arrangement the thing may be made nicely profitable.

No sooner has Aunt Rachel seen the children in their neat and familiar attire, than her feelings bound with joy,—­she cannot longer restrain them.  She has watched Marston’s moral delinquencies with suspicion; but she loves the children none the less.  And with honest negro nature she runs to them, clasps them to her bosom, fondles them, and kisses them like a fond mother.  The happy associations of the past, contrasted with their present unhappy condition, unbind the fountain of her solicitude,—­she pours it upon them, warm and fervent.  “Gwine t’ sell ye, too!  Mas’r, poor old Mas’r, would’nt sell ye, no how! that he don’t.  But poor old Boss hab ’e trouble now, God bless ’em,” she says, again pressing Annette to her bosom, nearer and nearer, with fondest, simplest, holiest affection.  Looking intently in the child’s face, she laughs with the bounding joy of her soul; then she smooths its hair with her brawny black hands:  they contrast strangely with the pure carnatic of the child’s cheek.