Page:The White Slave, or Memoirs of a Fugitive.djvu/163

 "What's this, Archy," he said, "what is the meaning of all this? It is the first I ever heard of your being married. You don't pretend to claim that pretty girl there for your wife?"

I replied that she was indeed, my wife, though it was now some two years or more, since we had seen or known any thing of each other. I added, that I had never mentioned my marriage to him, because I had despaired of ever seeing my wife again; and now, it was nothing but the merest accident that had brought us together.

"Well, Archy, if she is your wife, I don't know how I can help it, though I suppose I shall have you spending half your time at Poplar-Grove; — is not that what your place is called, Mrs Montgomery?"

She said it was; — and after a moment's pause, observed, that too little respect, she feared, was often paid to the matrimonial connexions of servants. For her part, she could not but regard them as sacred; and if Cassy and myself were really married, and I was a decent, civil fellow, she had no objection to my visiting Poplar-Grove, as often as Mr Carleton would permit.

My master undertook to answer for my good behavior; and turning to me, he bade me bring up the horses. I made all the haste I could; but before I returned, Mrs Montgomery was gone, and Cassy with her. We mounted, and had already taken the road to Carleton-Hall, when my master seemed to recollect that I had just found a wife from whom I had been long separated; and it began to occur to him, that possibly we might take some pleasure in being indulged with a little of one another's company. He gave me joy of my discovery, with an air half serious, half jocose, — as if in doubt whether a slave were properly entitled to a master's serious sympathy, — and remarked, in a careless tone, that perhaps I would like to spend the remainder of the day at Poplar-Grove.

As I knew that Mr Carleton had much real goodness of heart, I had long since learned to put up with his cavalier manner; and however little I might be pleased with the style in which he made the offer, the matter of his present: proposal fen so much to my fancy, that I eagerly