Page:The White Slave, or Memoirs of a Fugitive.djvu/145

 taught her to regard with the utmost horror and detestation? This was her only chance; she would try it, and trust in God's aid to give her endeavors a happy issue.

She now told Miss Ritty distinctly, how she felt, what she intended, and what assistance she wanted. Her new confederate applauded her resolution. "Certainly, if colonel Moore was really her father, that did make a difference; and her being a Methodist might help to account for her feelings, for she knew that sort of folks were mighty strict in all their notions."

But though Miss Ritty was ready enough to encourage and applaud, she seemed very reluctant to take any active part in aiding and abetting an escape, which though apparently it tended to promote her interests, might end, if her agency in it were discovered, in bringing her into danger and disgrace.

Several plans were talked over, but Miss Ritty had some objection to all of them. She preferred any thing to the risk of being suspected by her master, of plotting to defeat his wishes. As they found great difficulty in fixing upon any feasible plan, it was agreed at last, in order to gain time, to give out that Cassy was extremely sick. 'This indeed was hardly a fiction; — for nothing but the very critical nature of her situation had enabled the poor girl to sustain herself against the shocks and miseries of the last four and twenty hours. Ritty undertook to persuade her master, that the best thing he could do, was to let her alone till she got better. She would promise to take her into training in the mean time, and was to assure colonel Moore, that she did not doubt of being soon able to convince her, that it was both her interest and her duty, to comply with her master's wishes.

So far things went extremely well. They had hardly arranged their plan, before they heard colonel Moore's step in the outer room, Ritty ran to him, and succeeded in persuading him to go away without any attempt to see Cassy. He commended her zeal, and promised to be governed by her advice. The next day a circumstance happened which neither Cassy nor Ritty had anticipated, but which proved very favorable to their design. Colonel