short period was equalled only by her previous suffering. If this plan failed no other avenue of escape presented itself to her burning brain. Through weary years, perhaps, her miserable existence might be protracted, though it seemed scarcely possible. That rich auburn hair was already streaked with gray, and that fair, smooth skin so withered and wrinkled with the agony of torturing days and sleepless nights that one would scarcely recognize the wreck of what was once so beautiful and lovely. Thoughts of her children made her cling to life with about equal desperation, and for them she wrestled with many a temptation to crave for herself the blessed boon of lying down in her last sleep.
Her experience was not without its salutary lessons. While at the south her own troubles had somewhat blinded her to the sufferings of others notwithstanding her generous nature, and the enormities of the slave system never impressed her with such vividness as now, when she could realize the glorious blessing of liberty, and the utter heartlessness of any system that separates parent and child.
"How can such wickedness be tolerated," said she to herself, and then quickly recurring to her own case she marvelled all the more, "how is it that I, here in the land of my birth, surrounded by friends who have known me from childhood up, and once the favorite of every circle, am left to pine here in this living tomb? Why don't they come and batter down these doors? How can they go about their business with such cruel indifference when they know what a fellow-being is suffering, and a woman
