Page:The White Slave, or Memoirs of a Fugitive.djvu/152

 was burning in it, and the corn-cakes were baking in the ashes. In the opposite corner was a low bed, on which a man, the master of the family most likely, lay still a-sleep, undisturbed by the cries and clamors of half-a-dozen brats, who had been tumbling and bawling about the house, unwashed, uncombed, and half naked, but who were seized with sudden silence, and slunk behind their mother, at the sight of a stranger.

The woman pointed to a rude sort of stool or bench, which seemed the only piece of furniture in the nature of a chair, which the house contained, and asked Cassy to sit down. She did so; and her hostess eyed her sharply, and seemed to wait with a good deal of curiosity to hear who she was, and what she wanted. As soon as Cassy could collect her thoughts, she told her hostess that she was travelling from Richmond to Baltimore to see a sick sister. She was poor and friendless, and was obliged to go on foot. She had lost her way, and had wandered about all night, without knowing where she was, or whither she was going. She was half dead, she added, with hunger and fatigue, and wanted food and rest, and such directions about the road, as might enable her to pursue her journey. At the same time she took out her purse, in order to show that she was able to pay for what she wanted.

Her hostess, notwithstanding her rude and poverty-stricken appearance, seemed touched with this pitiful story. She told her to put up her money; she said she did not keep a tavern, and that she was able to give a poor woman a breakfast, without being paid for it.

Cassy was too faint and weak to be much in a humor for talking; besides, she trembled at every word, lest she might drop some unguarded expression that would serve to betray her. But now that the ice was broken, the curiosity of her hostess could not be kept under. She overwhelmed her with a torrent of questions, and every time Cassy hesitated, or gave any sign of confusion, she turned her keen grey eyes upon her, with a sharp and penetrating expression that increased her disorder.

Pretty soon the ash-cakes were baked, and the other preparations for breakfast were finished, when the woman