bed-side. She could scarcely speak a word distinctly, but taking first
one and then the other by the hand, she said inquiringly: "Lewis?"
"Lewis?" "Ned?"

They sat there at the bed-side by the hour that day. Sometimes she would
hold their hands lovingly in hers; then again she would lay her hand
gently on the heads of one and the other, and her eyes would wander
lovingly over their faces, and then fill with tears.

After a day or two little restless, fun-loving Ned grew tired of this,
and ran out to play; but Lewis stayed by his mother, and she was soon
able to talk with him.

She showed him her wrists where they had been worn by the irons, and her
back scarred by the whip, and she told him of cruelties that we may not
repeat here. She talked with him as if he were a man, and not a child;
and as he listened his heart and mind seemed to reach forward, and he
became almost a man in thought. He seemed to live whole years in those
few days that he talked with his mother. It was here that the fearful
fact dawned upon him as it never had before. _He was a slave_! He had no
control over his own person or actions, but he belonged soul and body to
another man, who had power to control him in everything. And this would
not have been so irksome had it been a person that he loved, but Master
Stamford he hated. He never met him but to be called by some foul
epithet, or booted out of the way. He had no choice whom he would serve,
and there would be no end to the thankless servitude but death.

"Mother," said the boy, "what have we done that we should be treated so
much worse than other people?"