“Was it this body?” enquires the lady, looking at the lifeless form before her.  He says, “That same, ma’am; an’ it looked as if he had tried to save the slender woman.”  He points to the body which Dame Stores has just uncovered.  The good lady kneels over the body:  her face suddenly becomes pale; her lips purple and quiver; she seems sinking with nervous excitement, as tremulously she seizes the blanched hand in her own.  Cold and frigid, it will not yield to her touch “That face-those brows, those pearly teeth, those lips so delicate,—­those hands,—­those deathless emblems! how like Franconia they seem,” she ejaculates frantically, the bystanders looking on with surprise.  “And are they not my Franconia’s-my dear deliverer’s?” she continues.  She smooths the cold hands, and chafes them in her own.  The rings thereon were a present from Marston.  “Those features like unto chiselled marble are hers; I am not deceived:  no! oh no! it cannot be a dream” (in sorrow she shakes her head as the tears begin to moisten her cheeks), “she received my letter, and was on her way seeking me.”  Again she smooths and smooths her left hand over those pallid cheeks, her right still pressing the cold hand of the corpse, as her emotions burst forth in agonising sobs.

The wrecker’s wife loosens the dress from about deceased’s neck-bares that bosom once so fair and beautiful.  A small locket, attached to a plain black necklace, lies upon it, like a moat on a snowy surface.  Nervously does the good woman grasp it, and opening it behold a miniature of Marston, a facsimile of which is in her own possession.  “Somethin’ more ’ere, mum,” says Dame Stores, drawing from beneath a lace stomacher the lap of her chemise, on which is written in indelible ink-"Franconia M’Carstrow.”  The doubt no longer lent its aid to hope; the lady’s sorrowing heart can no longer withstand the shock.  Weeping tears of anguish, she says, “May the God of all goodness preserve her pure spirit, for it is my Franconia! she who was my saviour; she it was who snatched me from death, and put my feet on the dry land of freedom, and gave me-ah, me!” she shrieked,—­and fell swooning over the lifeless body, ere Dame Stores had time to clasp her in her arms.

My reader can scarcely have failed to recognise in this messenger of mercy,—­this good woman who had so ennobled herself by seeking the sufferer and relieving his wants, and who makes light the cares of the lowly, the person of that slave-mother, Clotilda.  Having drank of the bitterness of slavery, she the more earnestly cheers the desponding.  That lifeless form, once so bright of beauty, so buoyant of heart and joyous of spirit, is Franconia; she it was who delivered the slave-mother from the yoke of bondage, set her feet on freedom’s heights, and on her head invoked its genial blessings.  Her soul had yearned for the slave’s good; she had been a mother to Annette, and dared snatch her from him who made the slave a wretch,—­democracy his boast!  It was Franconia who placed the miniature of Marston about Clotilda’s neck on the night she effected her escape,—­bid her God speed into freedom.  All that once so abounded in goodness now lies cold in death.  Eternity has closed her lips with its strong seal,—­no longer shall her soul be harassed with the wrongs of a slave world:  no! her pure spirit has ascended among the angels.