Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, page 209 by Various Authors
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, would I go with him to see her in one of the houses near? He had been there a few hours before, and thought she had a severe attack of cholera. We went, and found the venerable old lady in articulo mortis. She was much changed, and the surroundings indicated an equally great change in her circumstances which it was melancholy to witness. But one feature redeemed all that was disgusting in the picture: round the squalid bed five or six old negroes, men and women, knelt in deep devotion like fixed statues, offering up their prayers to the Throne of grace for the departing soul of their beloved mistress, whose life had been so chequered by the sunshine of pleasure and the clouds of adversity. She had just received the last rites of the Church. The priest had retired to perform similar duties elsewhere, leaving the humble but devoted blacks to watch the last breath of life and to close the eyes of their lifelong friend and mistress. I never felt more veneration at the deathbed of any of my own kindred, or deeper respect for mourners than I then felt for those faithful servants of Madame Valanbrun. The old lady died that evening. She devised the small remnant of her property to be divided among her old servants in common.
"Among these colored Creoles were some remarkable women. Well do I remember Suzette, Fanny, Clementine, as faithful watchers at sick beds: many precious lives did they save by their skill, judgment and fidelity. They were not eye-servants, working for money only: they worked from the purest motives of benevolence, from the sentiment of Christian charity.
"Another instance of fidelity came under my notice when I was a student of medicine in 1819. I boarded at a good old Frenchman's, whose few domestics were French creoles. One of these was the washerwoman. When quite young she had left St. Domingo with her old mistress, who had been kind to her in the days of prosperity on the island. The old lady managed to save a small portion of her wealth, and li