The boy, the preacher, Mr. M’Fadden’s purchase, can read; she will know him by that; she must bring him from the shed, from his cold bed of earth.  That crime of slavery man wastes his energies to make right, is wrong in the sight of heaven; our patient reads the glaring testimony as the demons of his morbid fancy haunt him with their damning terrors, their ghastly visages.

“Go, woman, bring him!” he whispers again.

Almost motionless the woman stands.  She has seen the little book-she knows it, and her eyes wander over the inscription on the cover.  A deep blush shadows her countenance; she fixes her piercing black eyes upon it until they seem melting into sadness; with a delicacy and reserve at variance with her menial condition, she approaches the bed, lays her hand upon the book, and, while the physician’s attention is attracted in another direction, closes its pages, and is about to depart.

“Can you tell which one he wants, girl?” enquires the physician, in a stern voice.

“His name, I think, is Harry; and they say the poor thing can preach; forgive me what I have done to him, oh Lord!  It is the weakness of man grasping the things of this world, to leave behind for the world’s nothingness,” says Mr. M’Fadden, as the woman leaves the room giving an affirmative reply.

The presence of the Bible surprised the woman; she knew it as the one much used by Harry, on Marston’s plantation.  It was Franconia’s gift!  The associations of the name touched the chord upon which hung the happiest incidents of her life.  Retracing her steps down the stairs, she seeks mine host of the tavern, makes known the demand, and receives the keys of this man-pen of our land of liberty.  Lantern in hand, she soon reaches the door, unlocks it gently, as if she expects the approach of some strange object, and fears a sudden surprise.

There the poor dejected wretches lay; nothing but earth’s surface for a bed,—­no blanket to cover them.  They have eaten their measure of corn, and are sleeping; they sleep while chivalry revels!  Harry has drawn his hat partly over his face, and made a pillow of the little bundle he carried under his arm.

Passing from one to the other, the woman approaches him, as if to see if she can recognise any familiar feature.  She stoops over him, passes the light along his body, from head to foot, and from foot to head.  “Can it be our Harry?” she mutters.  “It can’t be; master wouldn’t sell him.”  Her eyes glare with anxiety as they wander up and down his sleeping figure.

“Harry,—­Harry,—­Harry! which is Harry?” she demands.

Scarcely has she lisped the words, when the sleeper starts to his feet, and sets his eyes on the woman with a stare of wonderment.  His mind wanders-bewildered; is he back on the old plantation?  That cannot be; they would not thus provide for him there.  “Back at the old home!  Oh, how glad I am:  yes, my home is there, with good old master.  My poor old woman; I’ve nothing for her, nothing,” he says, extending his hand to the woman, and again, as his mind regains itself, their glances become mutual; the sympathy of two old associates gushes forth from the purest of fountains,—­the oppressed heart.