Page:The White Slave, or Memoirs of a Fugitive.djvu/398

 thing, as the miserable loneliness and substantial state of slavery into which she had sold herself; a state all the more disagreeable to her naturally busy and bustling temperament, since the post assigned her seemed to be, though bearing the name of mistress, to do nothing and to be nobody. Exerting herself by every means to calm, comfort, and divert her, — an office for which she was well fitted by her own uniform, sweet, and sunny disposition, — Cassy became entirely indispensable to her suffering mistress. This placed her in a rather delicate position as to the other servants, who were inclined to include her in their hostility and antipathy to Mrs Thomas. But her sweet temper and friendly disposition soon overcame all that. Some little favors and judicious compliments — since she always took a decided pleasure in making others happy — secured for her even the good will of the formidable aunt Dinah herself, into whose dominions she was thus able to venture with an impunity never vouchsafed to the mistress.

Little as there was, any way, of Mrs Thomas, either of intellect or heart, this assiduity and good will on the part of Cassy, though even she was not safe from occasional bursts of impatience and ill temper, were by no means thrown away upon her. Finding that Cassy had never been taught to read, — an accomplishment which none of her former kind mistresses had thought necessary, — she volunteered to teach her, and her little boy also; and she persevered in it, notwithstanding the occasional jocular threats' of Mr Thomas to have her prosecuted under the act against teaching slaves to read. Indeed, she seemed to take so much consolation in having at last found something to do, that, besides teaching Cassy various kinds of needlework, in which she was an adept, she also gave her lessons on a piano, which Mr Thomas had bought at the north, at the time of his marriage, and which came round by water. Nor was it long before Cassy's correct ear for music made her a greater proficient than her mistress, which, indeed, was not saying much.