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Show 210 UNCLE TOM'S CADI~: OR, to your children i but Tom could not write,- the mail for him had no existence, and the gulf of separation was unbridgcd by e1•cn "friendly word or signal. Is it strange, then, that some tears fhll on the pages of his Bible, us he lays it on the cotton-bale, and, with patient finger, threading his slow wa,y from worU to word, traces out its promises? Ila.ving learned. late in life, Tom was but a slow render, and passed on laboriously from verse to verse. Fortunate for him was it tbn.t the book he was intent on was one which slow reading cannot injure,- nay, one whoso words, like ingots of gold, seem often to need to ll<l weighed scpa.ratcly, that the mind may ta.kc in their priceless value. Let us follow him a. moment, as, pointing to each word, and pronouncing each half aloud, he reads, "Let- not-your - heart-be-troubled. In-myFather's- house-are-many-mansions. I-go -toprepare -a-place-for-you.'' Cicero, when he buried his d:u·ling and only daughter, bad a heart as full of honest grief as poor Tom's,- perhaps no fuller, for both were only men;- but Cicero could pause over no such sublime words of hope, aml look to no such futuro reUnion; and if he lwcl seen them, ten to one he 'vould not have believed,- be must fill his head first with a thousand questions of authenticity of manuscript, and correctness of tnm.sla.tion. But, to poor ~rom, there it la.y, just what ho needed, so evidently true and divino that the possibility of a question never entered his simple head. It must be true; for, if not true, how could he live 1 As for •.rom's Bible, though it had no annotations and helps in margin from learned commentators, still it hnd been cmbcl~ lished with certain way-marks and guide-boards of '11om's own invention, and which helped him more than the most leru ned LIFE A:\101-iG TilE 1 .. 0\\"l.t. 211 expositions could have done. It had been his custom to get the Bible read to him by his master's children, in particular by young ~faster Gc01·go ; and, as they read, he would designate, by bold, strong marks and dashes, with pen and ink, t.ho passages which more particularly gratified his ear or affected his heart. llis Bible was thus marked through, from one end to the other, with a. variety of styles and designations ; so he could in a moment seize upon his fiworito passages, without the labor of spelling out what la.y between them;- and while it lay there before him, every passage breathing of some old homo scene, and recalling some past enjoyment, his Bible seemed to him all of this life that remained, as well as the promise of a futuro one. Among the passengers on the boat was a. young gentleman of fortune and family, resident in New Orleans, who bore tho name of St. Clare. He had with him a daughter between five and six years of age, together with a. lady who seemed to claim relationship to both, and to have the little one cspcci:tlly under her charge. Tom h:td often CMtght glimpses of this little girl,- for she was one of those busy, tripping creatures, that can be no more contained in one place than a sunbeam or a summer brceze1- nor was she one that, once seen, coulll be easily forgotten. Her form was the perfection of childish hea.uty, without its usual chubbiness and squarencss of outline. ~f.1here wns about it an undulating and aiiria.l gmce, such as one might dream of for some mythic :md allegorical being. ller face was remarkable less for its perfect beauty of feature than for a singular and dreamy earnestness of expression, which made the ideal start when they looked at her, and by which the dullest am! most liternl were impressed, without exactly knowing why. r.rhe shape cf her he::u.l and tho turn of her neck anrl bust was |