My reader can scarcely have failed to recognise in this messenger of
mercy,--this good woman who had so ennobled herself by seeking the
sufferer and relieving his wants, and who makes light the cares of
the lowly, the person of that slave-mother, Clotilda. Having drank
of the bitterness of slavery, she the more earnestly cheers the
desponding. That lifeless form, once so bright of beauty, so buoyant
of heart and joyous of spirit, is Franconia; she it was who
delivered the slave-mother from the yoke of bondage, set her feet on
freedom's heights, and on her head invoked its genial blessings. Her
soul had yearned for the slave's good; she had been a mother to
Annette, and dared snatch her from him who made the slave a
wretch,--democracy his boast! It was Franconia who placed the
miniature of Marston about Clotilda's neck on the night she effected
her escape,--bid her God speed into freedom. All that once so
abounded in goodness now lies cold in death. Eternity has closed her
lips with its strong seal,--no longer shall her soul be harassed with
the wrongs of a slave world: no! her pure spirit has ascended among
the angels.
We will not longer pain the reader's feelings with details of this
sad recognition, but inform him that the body was removed to
Clotilda's peaceful habitation, from whence, with becoming ceremony,
it was buried on the following day. A small marble tablet, standing
in a sequestered churchyard near the outskirts of Nassau, and on
which the traveller may read these simple words:--"Franconia, my
friend, lies here!" over which, in a circle, is chiseled the figure
of an angel descending, and beneath, "How happy in Heaven are the
Good!" marks the spot where her ashes rest in peace.
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