30 UNCLE TOM’S CABIN; OR,

God help him! in his distress. They shall see, at any rate, that
their mistress can feel for and with them. As to Eliza, I dare not
think about it. The Lord forgive us! What have we done that
this cruel necessity should come on us ?”

Thre was one listener to this conversation whom Mr. and
_ Mrs. Shelby little suspected.

Communicating with their apartment was a large closet, opening
by a door into the outer passage. When Mrs. Shelby had dis-
missed Eliza for the night, her feverish and excited mind had
suggested the idea of this closet; and she had hidden herself
there, and, with her ear pressed close against the crack of the
door, had lost not a word of the conversation.

When the voices died into silence, she rose and crept stealthily
away. Pale, shivering, with rigid features and compressed lips,
she looked an entirely altered being from the soft and timid
creature she had been hitherto. She moved cautiously along the
entry, paused one moment at her mistress’s door, and raised her
hands in mute appeal to Heaven, and then turned and glided into
her own room. It was a quiet, neat apartment, on the same floor
with her mistress. There was the pleasant sunny window, where
she had often sat singing at her sewing; there a little case of
books, and various little fancy articles ranged by them, the gifts
of Christmas holidays; there was her simple wardrobe in the
closet and in the drawers—here was, in short, her home, and, on
the whole, a happy one it had been to her. But there, on the
bed, lay her slumbering boy, his long curls falling negligently
around his unconscious face, his rosy mouth half open, his little
fat hands thrown out over the bed-clothes, and a smile spread
like a sunbeam over his whole face.

«“ Poor boy! poor fellow!” said Eliza; “they have sold you!
but your mother will save you yet !”

No tear dropped over that pillow. In such straits as these the
heart has no tears to give; it drops only blood, bleeding itself
away in silence. She took a piece of paper and a pencil, and
wrote hastily—

“© missis! dear missis! don’t think me ungrateful—don't
think hard of me, any way. I heard all you and master said
to-night. I am going to try to save my boy—you will not blame
me! God bless and reward you for all your kindness !””
 Hastily folding and directing this, she went to a drawer and
made up a little package of clothing for her boy, which she tied
with a handkerchief firmly round her waist; and so fond is a
mother’s remembrance that, even in the terrors of that hour,
she did not forget to put in the little package one or two of his
favourite toys, reserving a gaily-painted parrot to amuse him
when she should be called on to awaken him. It was some
trouble to arouse the little sleeper; but, after some effert, he
sat up, and was playing with his bird while his mother was
putting on her bonnet and shawl.

_—