his wishes through my confidential dialogues with his children. Lucy
seemed delighted with the idea, looking forward to the time when her
brother would officiate in the same desk where her father and
grandfather had now conducted the worship of God for more than half a
century; a period of time that, to us young people, seemed to lead us
back to the dark ages of the country. And all this the dear girl
wished for her brother, in connection with his spiritual rather than
his temporal interests, inasmuch as the living was worth only a
badly-paid salary of one hundred and fifty pounds currency per annum,
together with a small but comfortable rectory, and a glebe of
five-and-twenty acres of very tolerable land, which it was thought no
sin, in that day, for the clergyman to work by means of two male
slaves, whom, with as many females, he had inherited as part of the
chattels of his mother.

I had a dozen slaves also; negroes who, as a race, had been in the
family almost as long as Clawbonny. About half of these blacks were
singularly laborious and useful, viz., four males and three of the
females; but several of the remainder were enjoying _otium_, and
not altogether without _dignitate_, as heir-looms to be fed,
clothed and lodged, for the good, or evil, they had done. There were
some small-fry in our kitchens, too, that used to roll about on the
grass, and munch fruit in the summer, _ad libitum;_ and stand so
close in the chimney-corners in cold weather, that I have often
fancied they must have been, as a legal wit of New York once
pronounced certain eastern coal-mines to be, incombustible. These
negroes all went by the patronymic of Clawbonny, there being among
them Hector Clawbonny, Venus Clawbonny, Caesar Clawbonny, Rose
Clawbonny--who was as black as a crow--Romeo Clawbonny, and Julietta,
commonly called Julee, Clawbonny; who were, with Pharaoh, Potiphar,