Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. III.djvu/37

Rh Christians, of Mormonism and Christianity, and have found it a pleasure to converse with her, a pleasure to her also which I little expected. We have been involuntarily and naturally attracted to each other, so that we feel as if we had been always acquainted. She says that I have given to her that spiritual food of which she stood in need, and she has given me a pleasure, a gratification which is nourishing to my heart. Octavia Le V. will be always united in my soul with the remembrance of the most delicious breezes and odours of the South, with the verdure of magnolia forests, with the fresh roar of the Mexican Gulf, with the sun and the song of birds in the orange groves of Mobile.

This fair daughter of beautiful Florida—for she was born in Florida, and there she spent her youth—is surrounded by a circle of relatives who seem to regard her as the apple of their eye; and if you would see the ideal of the relationship between a lady and her female slave, you should see Octavia Le V., and her clever, handsome mulatto attendant, Betsy. Betsy seems really not to live for anything else than for her Mistress, Octavia; to dress her hair, à la Mary Stuart, every day, and to see her handsome, gay, and admired, that is Betsy's life and happiness. She has travelled with Octavia in the United States, and when she gets on this subject, and can tell how captivating, how much admired, and worshipped was her lady, then is Betsy in her element.

“But, ah!” said Betsy, “she is now no longer like herself. Formerly she had such beautiful roses—you should have seen her! No, she has never been like herself, since her great sorrow!” And Betsy's eyes fill with tears.

Spite of Betsy's devoted affections; spite of Octavia' s seeing in her own and her mother's house none but happy slaves, she still belongs to those whose excellent hearts and understandings do not confuse good and evil. Whenever an opportunity occurs, she simply and