Page:Duty and Inclination 1.pdf/112

104 years before he asked permission to address her; who, wishing an establishment of her own, was the more willing to profit by so advantageous a settlement, and enter into the views of her father. The courtship was but the affair of a moment; and De Brooke, her brother, justly concluded it to be a match formed solely upon interested motives—avarice on the one hand, and ambition on the other.

But a short period had elapsed after this alliance of his sister, when a temporary check was given to her worldly enjoyments, by the death of her mother. To De Brooke the intelligence proved a real affliction. The amiable qualities of his mother, and the tender care bestowed by her upon his infancy, were indelibly engrafted on his heart.

There was another, a constant companion and participator in the feelings of De Brooke—a humble friend—one who, in bearing testimony to his mother's virtues, dropped with him the tear, also, of gratitude, respect and affection to her memory—a negro servant, who, shortly after breathing the day in his native southern clime, was destined, with his sable mother, to be transported to the West India islands; where, after a few years had invigorated his limbs, he was made to toil, by the side of his mother, in the fields. Alas! to this early endurance of hardship, a keener misery was to follow. From