"Heaven send me grace to prove my gratitude to you, kind Miss Nancy," I sobbed out.
"Why, my poor girl, I deserve no thanks for the performance of my duty. You are a human being, my good, attentive nurse, and I am bound to consider your comfort or prove unworthy of my avowed principles."
"This is so unlike what I have been used to, Miss Nancy, that it excites my wonder as well as gratitude."
"I fear, poor child, that you have served in a school of rough experience! You are so thoroughly disciplined, that, at times, you excite my keenest pity."
"Yes, ma'm, I have had all sorts of trouble. The only marvel is that I am not utterly brutalized."
"Some time you must tell me your history; but not now, my nerves are too unquiet to listen to an account so harrowing as I know your recital must be."
As I adjusted the pillow and arranged the beautiful silk spread (her own manufacture), I observed that her eyes were filled with tears. I said nothing, but the sight of those tears served to soften many a painful recollection of former years.
I am conscious, in writing these pages, that there will be few of my white readers who can enter fully into my feelings. It is impossible for them to know how deeply the slightest act of kindness impressed me—how even a word or tone gently spoken called up all my thankfulness! Those to whom kindness is common, a mere household article, whose ears are greeted morning, noon and night, with loving sounds and kind tones, will deem this strange and exaggerated; but, let them recollect that I was a slave—not a mere servant, but a perpetual slave, according to the abhorred code of Kentucky; and their wonder will cease.
The first night that I threw myself down on my bed to sleep (did I state that I had a bedstead—that I had actually what slaves deemed a great luxury—a high-post bedstead?) I felt as proud as a queen. Henry had been to see me. I entertained him in a nice, clean, carpeted kitchen, until a few minutes of ten o'clock, when he left me; for at that hour, by the city ordinance, he was obliged to be at home.