"A bad institution is this one of slavery. What fearful entailments of anguish! Manage it as the most humane will, or can, still it has horrible results. Witness your separation from your mother. Did these thoughts never occur to you?"
I looked surprised, but dared not tell her that often had vague doubts of the justice of slavery crossed my mind. Ah, too much I feared the lash, and I answered only by a mournful look of assent.
"Ann, did you never hear of the Abolition Society?"
I shook my head. She paused, as if doubtful of the propriety of making a disclosure; but at length the better principle triumphed, and she said, "There is in the Northern States an organization which devotes its energies and very life to the cause of the slave. They wish to abolish the shameful system, and make you and all your persecuted race as free and happy as the whites."
"Does there really exist such a society; or is it only a wild fable that you tell me, for the purpose of allaying my present agony?"
"No, child; I do not deceive you. This noble and beneficent society really lives; but it does not, I regret to say, flourish as it should."
"And why?" I asked, whilst a new wonder was fastening on my mind.
"Because," she answered, "the larger portion of the whites are mean and avaricious enough to desire, for the sake of pecuniary aggrandizement, the enslavement of a race, whom the force of education and hereditary prejudice have taught them to regard as their own property."
I did but dimly conceive her meaning. A slow light was breaking through my cloudy brain, kindling and inflaming hopes that now shine like beacons over the far waste of memory. Should I, could I, ever be free? Oh, bright and glorious dream! how it did sparkle in my soul, and cheer me through the lonely hours of bondage! This hope, this shadow of a hope, shone like a mirage far away upon the horizon of a clouded future.
Miss Bradly looked thoughtfully at me, as if watching the effect of her words; but she could not see that the seed which she had planted, perhaps carelessly, was destined to fructify and flourish through the coming seasons. I longed to pour out my heart to her; for she had, by this ready "sesame," unlocked its deepest chambers. I dared not unfold even to her the wild dreams and strange hopes which I was indulging.