Page:The White Slave, or Memoirs of a Fugitive.djvu/384

 "Take it — take it! I'll take it off your hands, and give a dollar to boot."

As the purchaser cast a doubting sort of a look at him, some one in the crowd remarked, "O, that's old Stubbings, the nigger baby broker; he makes a business of buying nigger babies; he's good!" And so accepting the offer, Mr Parker took possession of his new purchase, the young mother's smiles returning, with a profusion of thanks and "God bless ye's," when she found she was to take the child with her; wholly unaware, as she seemed to be, of the understanding by which the infant was to become the property of Stubbings, the speculator in that line, who promised Parker, in a few whispered words, to arrange matters so as to take the brat off quietly the next day, without giving the girl a chance to make a fuss.

"And now, gentlemen," said the auctioneer, well-satisfied, apparently, that the affair just disposed of had ended so quietly, "I have now to offer you a most rare chance for a housekeeper." Here he read from the list, "Cassy; understands housekeeping in all its branches; perfectly trustworthy, and warranted a member of the Methodist church! I can't exactly say, gentlemen, that she's young, but she's in excellent preservation for all that. Answers to the English description of 'fair — ' You needn't laugh; she's next door to white — she answers, I say, to the English description of 'fair, fat, and forty" Step up, Cassy, girl, and show yourself!"

O my God! What did I not suffer at that moment! Yet it was necessary to be quiet.

Cassy had been separated from the group where Thad first seen her, and brought forward by some of the assistants of the auction room, towards the place of sale. But instead of mounting the block as directed, she stood still beside it; and as all eyes were drawn towards her, she spoke out, in a gentle, but very firm and steady tone — how that voice, as familiar to my ear as if I had heard it every day for the last twenty years, instead of hearing it now for