"Papa is much obliged to you for his recommendation," said St Clare laughing, as he turned on his heel and walked away.'
Augustine St Clare was a wealthy citizen of New Orleans, and possessed a domestic establishment of great extent and elegance, with a body of servants in the condition of slaves, to whom he was an indulgent master. The description of this splendid mansion, with its lounging and wasteful attendants, its indolent, pretty, and capricious lady-mistress, and the account of Ophelia, a shrewd New-England cousin, who managed the household affairs, must be considered the best, or at least the most amusing portion of the work. The authoress also dwells with fondness on the character of the gentle Eva, a child of uncommon talents, but so delicate in health, so ethereal, that while still on earth, she seems already an angel of paradise leading and beckoning to Heaven. Eva was kind to everybody—kind even to Topsy, a negro girl whom St Clare had one day bought out of mere charity, on seeing her cruelly lashed by her former master and mistress. Topsy is a fine picture of a brutalised young negro, who never speaks the truth even by chance, and steals because she cannot help it. Every one gives up Topsy as utterly irreclaimable—all except the gentle Eva. Caught in a fresh act of theft, Topsy is led away by Eva. 'There was a little glass-room at the corner of the veranda, which St Clare used as a sort of reading-room; and Eva and Topsy disappeared into this place.
"What's Eva going about now?" said St Clare; "I mean to see." And advancing on tiptoe, he lifted up a curtain that covered the glass-door, and looked in. In a moment, laying his finger on his lips, he made a silent gesture to Miss Ophelia to come and look. There sat the two children on the floor, with their side-faces towards them, Topsy with her usual air of careless drollery and unconcern; but, opposite to her, Eva, her whole face fervent with feeling, and tears in her large eyes.
"What does make you so bad, Topsy? Why won't you try and be good? Don't you love anybody, Topsy?"
"Donno nothing 'bout love. I loves candy and sich—that's all," said Topsy.
"But you love your father and mother?"
"Never had none, ye know. I telled ye that, Miss Eva."
"Oh, I know," said Eva sadly; "but hadn't you any brother, or sister, or aunt, or"——
"No, none on 'm—never had nothing nor nobody."
"But, Topsy, if you'd only try to be good, you might"——