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Show 214 Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. displeased them greatly. l\1rs. Flint called on ~frs~ Sands's sister to inquire into the 1nattcr. he exprossed her opinion very freely as to. the rc poet J\Ir. Sand sho\vcd for his wife, and for Ins O\Yn character, in ackno,vlcdging those " young ni <Ygcr . " And as for sending Bllcn a-way, she pronounced. it to be ju ·t as much stealing as it ·would be for hi1n to co1nc and take a piece of furniture ont of he~~ parlor .. She saia her daughter ·was not of age to 'lgn the b1ll of ale, and the children \VCrc her property; aud ·when she bccmne of age, or \va 1narriccl, she could take thc1n, whcrc-rcr she could lay han<1 · on thc1n. ~Ii E1nily Flint, the little girl to \vhon1 I had been bequeathed, ·was no\v in her sixteenth year. IIcr mother con ·iclcrcd it all right and honorable for her, or her future hu ·band, to steal 1uy children; but he did not understand ho\v any body could hold np their heads in respectable society, after they had purchased their own ehildren, as l\Ir. Sancls had. done. Dr. Flint said very little. Perhaps he thought that Denny \Youlll be le s likely to be sent a·way if he kept q uict. One of n1y letLcrs, that fell into his hands, was daLecl from Can~ula ; and. he scldoln spoke of ll10 110\V. rrhis tate of things enabled 1ne to slip do\vn into tho storeroom more frequently, where I could stand upright~ and n1ovo 1ny limbs n1oro freely. Day , w·eeks, and 1nonths passed, and there ca1ne no news of Ellen. I sent a letter to Brooklyn, written in my grancllnoLher 's na1ne, to inquire \vhether she had arrived there. An.·wer was returned that she bad not. I wrote to her in \V ashington ; but no notice \Vas taken of it. There was one person there, who ought to have { ' New DeH:jnation for the Children. 215 had so1no sy1npatlty with tho anxiety of the child's friends at hon1e ; but the link. of . ·u ch r clalion. · as he had funned with 1nc, arc ca.-i1y broken and cat away as rublJi.-h. Y ct how protccLingly and. per ·ua.·iyely he once talked to tho poor, helpless slave girl! And how entirely I trusted hi1n! But now suspicions darkeuou n1y 1nincl. "\Vas n1y child. dead, or had they deceived 1ue, and sold her ? If the secret 1ne1noirs of n1any men1bers of Congress should. be publi ·heel, curious detail \VoulJ be unfolded. I once saw a letter fro1n a 1nember of Congre s to a slave, who \Vas tho 1nother of six of his children. IIc wrote to req nest that she ·would send her chiluren away fr01n the groat house before his r eturn, as he expected to be accompanieJ by friends. The woman could not read, and \vas obliged to cn1ploy another to read the letter. The existence of the colored ehildren did not trouble this gcntloinan, it \Vas only the fear that friends might r ecognize in their features a r esCinblance to hin1. At the end of six n1onths, a letter came to my grandmother, fro1n Brooklyn. It was written by a young lady in tho fatnily, and announced that Ellen had just arri vcll. It containoJ the following message fron1 her: "I do try to do just as you told me to, and I pray for you every night and n1orning." I understood that these ·words were rnean t for 1110 ; and they were a bals3l.n1 to 1ny heart. Tho \Vritor closed her letter by saying, "Ellen is a nice little girl, ancl we shall like to have her with us. ~Iy cousin, l\fr. Rand·, has giYcn her to 1ne, to be n1y li ttle ·waiting maitl. I shall send her to scl10ol, unci I hope so1no day she will write to |