“God bless you-good-bye, Molly.  Remember what I have told you so many times-long suffering and forbearance make the true Christian.  Be a Christian-seek to serve your Master faithfully; such the Scripture teacheth.  Now tie your handkerchief nicely on your head, and get your clean apron on, and mind to look good-natured when Mr. Forcheu sells you.”  This admonition, methodically addressed to the old slave, and Mrs. Swiggs waves her hand, resumes her Milton, and settles herself back into her chair.  Reader! if you have a heart in the right place it will be needless for us to dwell upon the feelings of that old slave, as she drags her infirm body to the shambles of the extremely kind vender of people.

CHAPTER XIV.

Mr. M’ARTHUR makes A discovery.

On his return from the theatre, Mr. McArthur finds his daughter, Maria, waiting him in great anxiety.  “Father, father!” she says, as he enters his little back parlor, “this is what that poor woman, Mag Munday, used to take on so about; here it is.”  She advances, her countenance wearing an air of great solicitude, holds the old dress in her left hand, and a stained letter in her right.  “It fell from a pocket in the bosom,” she pursues.  The old man, with an expression of surprise, takes the letter and prepares to read it.  He pauses.  “Did it come from the dress I discovered in the old chest?” he inquires, adjusting his spectacles.  Maria says it did.  She has no doubt it might have relieved her suffering, if it had been found before she died.  “But, father, was there not to you something strange, something mysterious about the manner she pursued her search for this old dress?  You remember how she used to insist that it contained something that might be a fortune to her in her distress, and how there was a history connected with it that would not reflect much credit on a lady in high life!”

The old man interrupts by saying he well remembers it; remembers how he thought she was a maniac to set so much value on the old dress, and make so many sighs when it could not be found.  “It always occurred to me there was something more than the dress that made her take on so,” the old man concludes, returning the letter to Maria, with a request that she will read it.  Maria resumes her seat, the old man draws a chair to the table, and with his face supported in his left hand listens attentively as she reads:  “Washington square, new York, May 14, 18—­

“I am glad to hear from Mr. Sildon that the child does well.  Poor little thing, it gives me so many unhappy thoughts when I think of it; but I know you are a good woman, Mrs. Munday, and will watch her with the care of a mother.  She was left at our door one night, and as people are always too ready to give currency to scandal, my brother and I thought that it would not be prudent to adopt it at once, more especially as I have been ill for