"Oh, for pity's sake, do not accuse her! You know not what it is to be a slave, bound to obey, body and soul, the commands of a master. Is not even resistance a crime? When Francilia returned she had become your father's mistress. She confessed all to me, with tears, and heart-rending grief! A terrible rage possessed me! I was like a drunken man! If, in that moment, Mr. Leslie had appeared before me, I know that I should have become a murderer. But the habit of suffering teaches resignation to the slave. This first fury past, I felt my energy abandon me, and I could only weep with Francilia over our vanished happiness. Alas, poor child, she no longer laughed, she no longer sang!"
"Poor girl! Poor girl!"
"It was only when you came into the world," continued Toby, "that she seemed to re-attach herself to life, and I, bestowing on you all the deep devotion that I had felt for her—forgive me, Miss Cora, I loved you as if you had been my own child."
"Dear Toby."
"But she—oh, how she loved you. With more than a mother's love; with the love of the slave, who knows that even her child is not her own, but is a slave like herself—and who dares not to slumber beside the cradle of her infant, for they take away the children while the mother sleeps, and she awakes, perhaps, to find the cradle empty."
"Oh, cruel, cruel!"
"But this was not the fate with which you were threatened. Mr. Leslie had married a vain and capricious woman. They had no children, and his life was not a happy one. His love for you was intense—all the more intense, as he was compelled to conceal from all an affection which would have been considered a weakness. Your father's love for you had reassured Francilia, when one day (you were then four years old), he announced his determination of taking you to England. Francilia did not utter a word; the silent tears filled her mournful eyes. But when they tore you from her arms, she burst into a tempest of sobs, and fell insensible to the ground."
"Yes, yes, I remember."
"But all that is nothing!" cried the slave, his eyes flashing with vengeful fury; "nothing to—. Yet, no, no! I have no more to tell."
"But I insist on knowing all," exclaimed Cora vehemently. "What became of my unhappy mother? How did she die?"