with everything, and with them, by sale. Their dark hearers wept with
them, and Silas, Hester, and Sidney, after the rest had gone back to
the quarters, offered the master and mistress, through many a quaintly
misquoted scripture, the consolations of faith.

"I wish we had set you free, Silas," said uncle, "you and yours, when
we could have done it. Your mistress and I are going to town to-morrow
solely to get somebody to buy you, all four, together."

"Mawse Ben," cried the slave, with strange earnestness, "don't you do
dat! Don't you was'e no time dat a-way! You go see what you can
sa-ave fo' you-all an' yone!"

"For the creditors, you mean, Silas," said my aunt; "that's done."

Hester had a question. "Do it all go to de credito's anyhow, Miss
'Liza, no matteh how much us bring?" and when aunt said yes, Sidney
murmured to her mother, "I tol' you dat." I wondered when she had told
her.

Uncle and aunt tried hard to find one buyer for the four, but failed;
nobody who wanted the other three had any use for Mingo. It was after
nightfall when they came dragging home. "Now don't you fret one bit
'bout dat, Mawse Ben," exclaimed Sidney, with a happy heroism in her
eyes that I remembered afterward. "'De Lawd is perwide!'"

"Strange," said my aunt to uncle and me aside, smiling in pity, "how
slight an impression disaster makes on their minds!" and that too I
remembered afterward.