His Other Wife: A Novel — page 58: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

50 MISSIONARY WORK. the character and probable effects of the treatment she was receiving. : Finally the poor lady became so dangerously ill that her death was imminent. Mr. Croft seemed to be plunged in grief. The most intense sympathy was manifested by the family of the landlady in the husband’s sorrow. The nurse was a very good old mulattress, a slave, who belonged to Mrs. Croft, having been left her as portion of her moth- -er’s estate, which consisted of a plantation and some ne- groes in Mississippi, but which Mrs. Croft’s guardian had sold, converting the property into bonds and stocks. This old woman alone was reserved from among the negroes, and had always remained with Rachel. She seemed to resent her master’s demonstrations of affliction. Of course, she dared not do so openly, but in a thousand mute ways she discovered the most intense dislike for and mistrust of Mr. Croft. | When Mrs. Croft found herself sinking so rapidly, she begged of her husband to draw up a legal paper emanci- - pating the old woman, and bestowing on her the moderate sum of five hundred dollars, which, for fear of accidents, Mrs. Croft gave at once into Amy’s hands. Perhaps Mrs. Croft divined the antipathy which old Maum Amy felt toward her new master, and, knowing Mr. Croft's anti-slavery prejudices, was willing thus to relieve both parties from mutual relatiens, equally distasteful to both. The old woman received her gift of freedom, and its accompanying legacy, with tears and groans of gratitude, | =| Eomicbooks.¢o