"Poor
Harry!" she says, "how I have longed to see you, and your poor wife
and children!"
"Ah, Franconia, my young missus, it is for them my soul fears."
"But we have found out where they are," she interrupts.
"Where they are!" he reiterates.
"Indeed we have!" Franconia makes a significant motion with her
head.
"It's true, Harry; and we'll see what can be done to get them back,
one of these days," adds Mrs. Rosebrook, her soul-glowing eyes
affirming the truth of her assertion. They have come out to spend
the day at the plantation, and a happy day it is for those whose
hearts they gladden with their kind words. How happy would be our
south-how desolate the mania for abolition--if such a comity of good
feeling between master and slaves existed on every plantation! And
there is nothing to hinder such happy results of kindness.
"When that day comes, missus,--that day my good old woman and me will
be together again,--how happy I shall be! Seems as if the regaining
that one object would complete my earthly desires. And my
children,--how much I have felt for them, and how little I have
said!" returns Harry, as, seated in the veranda of the plantation
mansion, the two ladies near him are watching his rising emotions.
"Never mind, Harry," rejoins Franconia; "it will all be well, one of
these days. You, as well as uncle, must bear with trouble. It is a
world of trouble and trial." She draws her chair nearer him, and
listens to his narrative of being carried off,--his endeavours to
please his strange master down in Mississippi,--the curious manner in
which his name was changed,--the sum he was compelled to pay for his
time, and the good he effected while pursuing the object of his
mission on the neighbouring plantations.
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