"'Ah ma'am,' said Lucy, 'what shall I do now she is gone? I have got no
friend left; if I could only die too--Lord have mercy upon me.'

"'You have still a friend, Lucy,' I said. 'One that well deserves the name
of friend. You must seek Him out, and make a friend of Him. Jesus Christ is
the friend of the poor and desolate. Have you no children, Lucy?'

"'God only knows, ma'am.'

"'What do you mean?' I said. 'Are they all dead?'

"'They are gone, ma'am--all sold. I ain't seen one of them for twenty
years. Days have come and gone, and nights have come and gone, but day and
night is all the same to me. You did not hear, may be, for grand folks
don't often hear of the troubles of the poor slave--that one day I had
seven children with me, and the next they were all sold; taken off, and I
did not even see them, to bid them good-by. My master sent me, with my
mistress to the country, where her father lived, (for she was sickly, and
he said it would do her good,) and when we came back there was no child to
meet me. I have cried, ma'am, enough for Miss Ellen, but I never shed a
tear for my own.'

"'But what induced him, Lucy, to do such a wicked thing?'

"'Money, ma'am, and drinking, and the devil. He did not leave me one. My
five boys, and my two girls, all went at once. My oldest daughter, ma'am, I
was proud of her, for she was a handsome girl, and light-colored too--she
went, and the little one, ma'am. My heart died in me. I hated him. I used
to dream I had killed him, and I would laugh out in my sleep, but I
couldn't murder him on her account. My mistress, she cried day and night,