country, kindred, and friendship-to all that gives charms to existence. Haunted by a pleasure which was always in my view, without being ever within my reach, I could not subdue the killing emotions thus raised in my soul.

The growth of my child alone marked to me the progress of time. Ah, moment! how sweet art thou yet to my memory, when first her little voice strove at articulation! The blessed name of mother at length broke the drear silence of my prison, and hardly the celestial sounds of hovering angels, had I been launched into eternity, could give me a sublimer pleasure. I saw her walk with a transport scarcely inferior. Engrossed by and devoted to this sole object of my eyes and heart, which the gracious Author of universal being permitted her to fill, I no longer repined at my unmerited captivity. Only anxious lest any one should suspect my possession of this invaluable gem, I felt ready to hide her, even when the old slave made her daily appearance. The common raiment with which we were periodically supplied, I be

came ingenious in fitting to her little form, and by that insensible contraction of our faculties, which extends through nature, although it has been remarked only in the organs of sight, I drew into this narrow bound those fears, hopes, wishes, and employments, which in rapid succession fill up our lives, and leave behind a remembrance that we always revert to with satisfaction, and often conceive to have been happiness.

Fearful, at some intervals, lest the want of air or exercise should nip my beauteous blossom, I devised a thousand little plans to make her run within her narrow confines, and strengthen a constitution born perhaps to trials not inferior to those which had blighted her mother's youth. I held her to the window morning and evening, and found the winds of heaven blew not less pure through iron bars than gilded lattices. Ah! surely my memory does not err, when I say with the poet, that

From the children of the first-born Cain,
To him who did but yesterday suspire,

There was not such a gracious creature born;

For nature's gifts she might with lilies vie,

And with the half-blown rose.

I was one day holding the dear child to the evening air, her little hands now grasped the rough bars, and now were extended through them, while her innocent tongue beguiled her fond mother's attention, when I suddenly perceived a black woman, apparently of distinction, leaning under an awning, raised at no great distance; and while she talked busily to the slaves who were fanning her, the eyes of all were turned intently on my infant. I snatched her away, with an apprehension the most lively I had for years felt; I even absented myself from the window for a long time; then venturing a glance, without approaching near enough to be seen, I perceived the stranger's eyes were still fixed upon my prison, and the repose of that night was wholly destroyed by a vague fear the next confirmed. At the same hour she returned

ter.
to the

again to the same pavilion, and after watching the window in vain (as I no longer dared to approach it), she shewed manifest tokens of chagrin and disappointment. Alas, this was not all! My old negro appeared soon after, and delivering me an unintelligible message, demanded my daughI prayed, wept, entreated, groaned poor wretch, whose eyes alone, of all her senses, seemed affected by my agonies. After a thousand incomprehensible signs on her part, and resolute refusals on my own, she snatched the child from those weak arms which wanted an equal power of resistance, and left me stretched on the floor, from the lameness I have mentioned.

It was long ere I had courage to approach the window; but collecting every power of mind and body, I at length ventured thither. I saw the darling child seated on cushions at the feet of the woman whose power wrested her from me, laden with toys, and overwhelmed with caresses. This, however, was but a small relief to my maternal anguish, while uncertain whether I had not lost her for ever: nor did my.

apprehensions diminish when I saw the attendant slaves bear their mistress away on a covered couch, with my child in her arms. Ah, then my prison became a dungeon indeed! I smote my head against the enclosing bars, and the air echoed to my groans. They were only relieved by the return of my old slave, who leading in my lamented cherub, once more blest my arms with the burthen. My heart rushed so impetuously towards her, that it seemed to extend through my whole throbbing frame.. As I surveyed the recovered blessing with added fondness, I perceived that the gentle black I had so injuriously distrusted, had lavishly adorned the tender object of a sur-prising attachment. Imagine a girl between three and four years old, slight,, graceful, fair, and blooming, whose amber locks the hand of nature had twined into a thousand spiral rings, which fell over a loose. vest of silver muslin girt with roses: her little arms and ancles were encircled with fanciful bracelets of different-coloured beads; while her hand bore a gilt basket, filled with the fruits of the country. She