Phædra was set free. The quadroons and mestizzas, with all their fiery vehemence of temperament, have perhaps less of real vital stamina than any other race. They cannot bear up under any great mental or physical pressure. Phædra, by the terrible blow that had fallen upon her, was crushed into premature age and decrepitude. And, as a useless old crone, she was suffered by her new master to retire to a lone cabin in the pine barrens above the cypress swamp, and, without being required to work, was supplied with rations of food and clothing upon an equal footing with the plantation laborers.
But this poor Naomi, in her desolation, had also her Ruth.
Fannie had almost miraculously recovered from the yellow fever; and, in the mental imbecility that had attended her convalescence, she had been long shielded from the knowledge of the calamity that had fallen upon them all; and at last so gradually did the facts of the catastrophe enter her mind that she could never after say when or how she first learned the sum of her misery; and thus she was spared the sudden shock that must certainly have proved fatal to her.
No one could look upon that fragile form and thin face, with its fair, transparent pallor, and large, mournful eyes, and not know her heart was breaking.
What kept her life power going?
Something that was not the love of her child, or of her poor, old mother! Something that occasionally varied that look of hopeless, incurable sorrow, with a wild and startled expression of extreme terror, suggestive of insanity. Some people thought it was insanity, but they were mistaken; her reason was sound, though her heart was broken.
Fannie kept a little thread and needle shop; she owed the little shop to the benevolence of Mrs. Waring; for, to the honor of that poor lady be it spoken, even in the midst of her own awful sorrow, she had remembered and succored her humble sister in adversity. Fannie's little shop thrived moderately, and afforded herself and child a decent living, and the means of alleviating some of the miseries and adding to the few comforts of her poor mother.
Early every Saturday evening Fannie would close her little shop and take her child and walk out to Phædra's cabin, to remain until Monday morning. And these seasons, spent in reading the Scriptures, in prayer, and in mutual consolations, were the least unhappy in these poor women's lives.
Phædra's decrepitude confined her closely at home.
But the brothers and sisters of her church did not leave her alone in her sorrow. They came frequently, they ministered to all her necessities, material and spiritual, as far as she had need, and they had power. They held a weekly prayer-meeting at her house.