father's family, I apprehend. You seem sad at finding that his grave is
not in the best place. "The water rises within three feet of the
surface;"--we infer, from the regret which you seem to feel at this,
that you have some care and pity for your old slaves, which extends even
to their graves. But we had well nigh borrowed strength to our
prejudices from this place of old Timmy's grave, and were saying with
ourselves, Thus the slave-holders bury their slaves where the water may
overflow them; but you seem to apologize to your father for Timmy's
having such a poor place for his remains by saying, "His own" (Timmy's)
"family selected his burying-place, and probably did not think of this."
Very kind in you, dear madam, to speak so. "The friends of the slave"
are greatly obliged to you for such consideration. You say, "His own
family selected his burying-place." Do slaves have such a liberty? Can
they go and come in their burying-grounds and choose places for the
graves of their kindred? This is being full as good to your servants, in
this particular, as we are at the North to our domestics. You thought
poor old Timmy's grave was not in a spot sufficiently choice for this
little babe's grave, and, it seems, you inclosed a spot, and inaugurated
it by the burial of this child, for the last resting-place of other
babes, the kindred of this child and of your other servants. This looks
as though there were some domestic permanence in some parts of the South
among the servants of a household; and as though the birth and death of
a child have some other associations with you than those which belong to
the breeding and sale of poultry. We are truly glad to think of all
this. It is exceedingly pleasant to have a good opinion of people, much
more so than to believe evil of them, and to accuse them wrongfully.

In speaking thus to you, I make myself think--and I hope I do not seem
self-complacent in saying it, for you must have learned from the tone of
my remarks, if from no other source, that self-complacency is not a