"I an't a Christian like you, Eliza; my heart's full of bitterness; I
can't trust in God. Why does he let things be so?"

"O, George, we must have faith. Mistress says that when all things go
wrong to us, we must believe that God is doing the very best."

"That's easy to say for people that are sitting on their sofas and
riding in their carriages; but let 'em be where I am, I guess it would
come some harder. I wish I could be good; but my heart burns, and can't
be reconciled, anyhow. You couldn't in my place,--you can't now, if I
tell you all I've got to say. You don't know the whole yet."

"What can be coming now?"

"Well, lately Mas'r has been saying that he was a fool to let me marry
off the place; that he hates Mr. Shelby and all his tribe, because they
are proud, and hold their heads up above him, and that I've got proud
notions from you; and he says he won't let me come here any more, and
that I shall take a wife and settle down on his place. At first he
only scolded and grumbled these things; but yesterday he told me that I
should take Mina for a wife, and settle down in a cabin with her, or he
would sell me down river."

"Why--but you were married to _me_, by the minister, as much as if you'd
been a white man!" said Eliza, simply.

"Don't you know a slave can't be married? There is no law in this
country for that; I can't hold you for my wife, if he chooses to part
us. That's why I wish I'd never seen you,--why I wish I'd never been