70
saw him often, and thought she knew him. He never spoke of his enslavement to her when alone, but she felt that, like her own oppression, it was painful to disturb oftener than was needful.
He was a fine, straight negro, whose back showed no marks of the lash, erect as if it never crouched beneath a burden. There was a silent sympathy which Frado felt attracted her, and she opened her heart to the presence of love-- that arbitrary and inexorable tyrant.
She removed to Singleton, her former resi- dence, and there was married. Here were Fra- do's first feelings of trust and repose on human arm. She realized, for the first time, the relief of looking to another for comfortable support. Occasionally he would leave her to "lecture."
Those tours were prolonged often to weeks. Of course he had little spare money. Frado was again feeling her self-dependence, and was at last compelled to resort alone to that. Samuel was kind to her when at home, but made no pro- vision for his absence, which was at last unprece- dented.
He left her to her fate--embarked at sea, with the disclosure that he had never seen the South, and that his illiterate harangues were humbugs for hungry abolitionists. Once more alone! Yet not alone. A still newer compan- ionship would soon force itself upon her. No one wanted her with such prospects. Herself was burden enough; who would have an addi- tional one?
The horrors of her condition nearly prostrated her, and she was again thrown upon the public for sustenance. Then followed the birth of her child. The long absent Samuel unexpectedly returned, and rescued her from charity. Recov- ering from her expected illness, she once more commenced toil for herself and child, in a room obtained of a poor woman, but with better for- tune. One so well known would not be wholly neglected. Kind friends watched her when Sam- uel was from home, prevented her from suffering, and when the cold weather pinched the warmly clad, a kind friend took them in, and thus pre- served them. At la