devoted affection, he would have liked to remain in Mobile a few
years longer, and accumulate more; but, as it was, he determined to
remove as soon as he could arrange his affairs satisfactorily. He
set about this in good earnest. But, alas! the great pecuniary crash
of 1837 was at hand. By every mail came news of failures where he
expected payments. The wealth, which seemed so certain a fact a few
months before, where had it vanished? It had floated away, like a
prismatic bubble on the breeze. He saw that his ruin was inevitable.
All he owned in the world would not cancel his debts. And now he
recalled the horrible recollection that Loo Loo was a part of his
property. Much as he had blamed Mr. Duncan for negligence in not
manumitting her mother, he had fallen into the same snare. In the
fulness of his prosperity and happiness, he did not comprehend the
risk he was running by delay. He rarely thought of the fact that she
was legally his slave; and when it did occur to him, it was always
accompanied with the recollection that the laws of Alabama did not
allow him to emancipate her without sending her away from the State.
But this never troubled him, because there was always present with
him that vision of going to the North and making her his wife. So
time slipped away, without his taking any precautions on the subject;
and now it was too late. Immersed in debt as he was, the law did not
allow him to dispose of anything without consent of creditors; and he
owed ten thousand dollars to Mr. Grossman. Oh, agony! sharp agony!

There was a meeting of the creditors. Mr. Noble rendered an account
of all his property, in which he was compelled to include Loo Loo;
but for her he offered to give a note for fifteen hundred dollars,
with good endorsement, payable with interest in a year. It was known
that his attachment to the orphan he had educated amounted almost to
infatuation; and his proverbial integrity inspired so much respect,