Page:Sketch of Connecticut, Forty Years Since.djvu/102

 with us a hope that can never fail, a glory that can never die."

It has been mentioned that this good old African, had a daughter who resided with him. She was the sole surviving offspring of a wife who had been many years dead, and bore no resemblance to her father, either in person or mind. Without being decidedly vicious, she might be ranked among those many personages who prove that merit is not hereditary. Having but little employment at home, she was by profession both spy and gossip; not that the union of these departments is peculiar, or monopolized by females of her colour and station. Seldom was any occurrence in the household of her neighbours, unknown to her. The incipient designs of courtship and matrimony were favourite subjects for her boasted discernment, or malignant prediction, and it might almost be said of her, that—

She was time-keeper, for all who came within the range of her acquaintance. No single-lady, who approached the frontier of desperation, could presume to curtail a year from the fearful calendar, if Flora were near to bring her back to the correct computation of her own date. That portion of the affections, which Nature had introduced into the system of this wayward dame, were more liberally bestowed upon animals, than upon her own kind. Cats were her principal favourites, and wandered around far precincts, in every shade and diversity of colour.