Her friend shakes his head unwillingly.  Fearing he may become an object of derision, he will not come forward.  Poor old slave! faithful from her childhood up, she has reached an age where few find it profitable to listen to her supplications.  The black veil of slavery has shut out the past good of her life,—­all her faithfulness has gone for nothing; she has passed into that channel where only the man-dealer seeks her for the few dollars worth of labour left in a once powerful body.  Oh! valuable remnant of a life, how soon it may be exhausted-forgotten!

Bidders have some doubts about the amount of labour she can yet perform; and, after much manifest hesitancy, she is knocked down to Romescos for the sum of two hundred and seventy dollars.  “There! ’tain’t a bad price for ye, nohow!” says the vender, laconically.  “Get down, old woman.”  Rachel moves to the steps, and is received by Romescos, who, taking his purchase by the arm, very mechanically sets it on one side.  “Come, Auntie, we’ll make a corn-cracker a’ you, until such time as we can put yer old bones in trim to send south.  Generousness, ye see, made me gin more nor ye war’ worth-not much work in ye when ye take it on the square;—­but a feller what understands the trimmin’ a’ niggers like I can do ye up young, and put an honest face on while he’s cheatin’ some green chap with yer old bones.”  Romescos, very clever in his profession, is not quite sure that his newly-purchased property will “stay put.”  He turns about suddenly, approaches Rachel-crouched in a corner-mumbling over some incomprehensible jargon, evidently very much disturbed in her feelings, saying, “I kind a’ think I see devil in yer eye, old woman.”  Rachel turns her head aside, but makes no answer.  Mr. Romescos will make everything certain; so, drawing a cord, similar to a small sized clothes line, from his pocket, she holds up her hands at his bidding:  he winds it several times round her wrists, then ties it securely.  “The property’s all safe now,” he whispers, and returns to attend the bidding arrangements.

One by one-mothers, fathers, and single property, old and young, as may be-are put upon the stand; sold for the various uses of manifest democracy.  Harry,—­the thinking property, whose sense-keeping has betrayed the philosophy of profound democracy,—­is a preacher, and, by the value of his theological capacity, attracts more than ordinary attention.  But his life has been a failure,—­a mere experiment in divinity struggling with the sensitive power of model democracy.  He now seems impatient to know that doom to which the freedom of an enlightened age has consigned him.  One minute some cheering hope of his getting a good master presents itself in a familiar face; then it turns away, and with it vanishes his hope.  Another comes forward, but it is merely to view his fine proportions.

Harry has feelings, and is strongly inclined to cling to the opinion that those who know his character and talents, will be inclined to purchase.  Will they save him from the cruelties of ordinary plantation life?