NEGRO LIFE IN AMERICA. 247

   

I only gave them to our poor people myself, because, you know,
papa, they might be forgotten when I am gone, and because
I hoped it might help them remember. ... You are a Christian,
are you not, papa?” said Eva doubtfully.

‘* Why do you ask me?”

«J don’t know. You are so good, I don’t see how you can
help it.”

‘“‘ What is being a Christian, Eva ?”

“ Loving Ghrist most of all,” said Eva.

“ Do you, Eva?” '

‘‘ Certainly I do.”

“You never saw him,” said St. Clare.

“ That makes no difference. I believe him, and in a few days
I shall see him;” and the young face grew radiant with joy. _

St. Clare said no more. It was a feeling which he had seen
before in his mother; but no chord within vibrated to it.

Eva after this declined rapidly: there was no more any doubt
of the event; the fondest hope could not be blinded. . Her beau-
tiful room was avowedly a sick-room; and Miss Ophelia day and
night performed the duties of a nurse—and never did her friends
appreciate her value more than in that capacity. With so well-
trained a hand and eye, such perfect adroitness and practice in
every art that could promote neatness and comfort, and keep out
of sight every disagreeable incident of sickness—with such a
_ perfect sense of time, such a clear, untroubled head, such exact
accuracy in remembering every prescription and direction of the
doctors—she was everything to him, They who had shrugged
their shoulders at her little peculiarities and setnesses, so unlike
the careless freedom of southern manners, acknowledged that now
she was the exact person that was wanted. |

Uncle Tom was much in Eva’s room. The child suffered much
from nervous restlessness, and it was a relief to her to be carried ;
and it was Tom's greatest delight to carry her little frail form in
his arms, resting on a pillow, now up and down her room, now
out into the verandah; and when the fresh sea-breezes blew from
the lake, and the child felt freshest in the morning, he would
sometimes walk with her under the orange-trees in the garden,
or, sitting down in some of their old seats, sing to her their
favourite old hymns.

Her father often did the same thing; but his frame was
slighter, and when he was weary, Eva would say to him—

“© papa, let Tom take me. Poor fellow! it pleases him; and
you know it’s all he can do now, and he wants to do something !”

** So do I, Eva,” said her father.

* Well, papa, you can do everything, and are everything to me.
You read to me—you sit up nights—and Tom has only this one
thing, and his singing; and I know, too, he does it easier than
you can. He carries me so strong!”