The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858

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Arrived at his stylish house, he escorted her to a large chamber
elegantly furnished.

"I told you I would treat you like a princess," he said; "and I will
keep my word."

He would have seated himself; but she prevented him, saying,
"I have one favor to ask, and I shall be very grateful to you, if
you will please to grant it."

"What is it, my charmer?" he inquired. "I will consent to anything
reasonable."

She answered, "I could not get a wink of sleep in that filthy prison;
and I am extremely tired. Please leave me till to-morrow."

"Ah, why did you compel me to send you to that abominable place? It
grieved me to cast such a pearl among swine. Well, I want to
convince you that I am a kind master; so I suppose I must consent.
But you must reward me with a kiss before I go."

This was the hardest trial of all; but she recollected the danger of
exciting his suspicions, and complied. He returned it with so much
ardor, that she pushed him away impetuously; but softening her
manner immediately, she said, in pleading tones, "I am exceedingly
tired; indeed I am!"

He lingered, and seemed very reluctant to go; but when she again
urged her request, he said, "Good night, my beauty! I will send up
some refreshments for you, before you sleep."

He went away, and she had a very uncomfortable sensation when she
heard him lock the door behind him. A prisoner, with such a jailer!
With a quick movement of disgust, she rushed to the water-basin and
washed her lips and her hands; but she felt that the stain was one
no ablution could remove. The sense of degradation was so cruelly
bitter, that it seemed to her as if she should die for very shame.

In a short time, an elderly mulatto woman, with a pleasant face,
entered, bearing a tray of cakes, ices, and lemonade.

"I don't wish for anything to eat," said Loo Loo, despondingly.

"Oh, don't be givin' up, in dat ar way," said the mulatto, in kind,
motherly tones. "De Lord ain't a-gwine to forsake ye. Ye may jus'
breeve what Aunt Debby tells yer. I'se a poor ole nigger; but I
hab 'sarved dat de darkest time is allers jus afore de light come.
Eat some ob dese yer goodies. Ye oughter keep yoursef strong fur de
sake ob yer friends."

Loo Loo looked at her earnestly, and repeated, "Friends? How do you
know I _have_ any friends?"

"Oh, I'se poor ole nigger," rejoined the mulatto. "I don't knows
nottin'."

The captive looked wistfully after her, as she left the room. She
felt disappointed; for something in the woman's ways and tones had
excited a hope within her. Again the key turned on the outside; but
it was not long before Debby reappeared with a bouquet.

"Massa sent young Missis dese yer fowers," she said.

"Put them down," rejoined Loo Loo, languidly.

"Whar shall I put 'em?" inquired the servant.

"Anywhere, out of my way," was the curt reply.

Debby cautioned her by a shake of her finger, and whispered,
"Massa's out dar, waitin' fur de key. Dar's writin' on dem ar fowers."
She lighted the lamps, and, after inquiring if anything else was
wanted, she went out, saying, "Good night, missis. De Lord send ye
pleasant dreams."

Again the key turned, and the sound of footsteps died away. Loo Loo
eagerly untwisted the paper round the bouquet, and read these words:
"Be ready for travelling. About midnight your door will be unlocked.
Follow Aunt Debby with your shoes in your hand, and speak no word.
Destroy this paper." To this Madame Labasse had added, "Ne craigner
rien, ma chere."

Loo Loo's heart palpitated violently, and the blood rushed to her
cheeks. Weary as she was, she felt no inclination to sleep. As she
sat there, longing for midnight, she had ample leisure to survey the
apartment. It was, indeed, a bower fit for a princess. The chairs,
tables, and French bedstead were all ornamented with roses and
lilies gracefully intertwined on a delicate fawn-colored ground. The
tent-like canopy, that partially veiled the couch, was formed of
pink and white striped muslin, draped on either side in ample folds,
and fastened with garlands of roses. The pillow-cases were
embroidered, perfumed, and edged with frills quilled as neatly as
the petals of a dahlia. In one corner stood a small table, decorated
with a very elegant Parisian tea-service for two. Lamps of cut glass
illumined the face of a large Pscyche mirror, and on the toilet
before it a diamond necklace and ear-rings sparkled in their crimson
velvet case. Loo Loo looked at them with a half-scornful smile, and
repeated to herself:

"He bought me somewhat high;
Since with me came a heart he couldn't buy."

She lowered the lamps to twilight softness, and tried to wait with
patience. How long the hours seemed! Surely it must be past midnight.
What if Aunt Debby had been detected in her plot? What if the master
should come, in her stead? Full of that fear, she tried to open the
windows, and found them fastened on the outside. Her heart sank
within her; for she had resolved, in the last emergency, to leap out
and be crushed on the pavement. Suspense became almost intolerable.
She listened, and listened. There was no sound, except a loud
snoring in the next apartment. Was it her tyrant, who was sleeping so
near? She sat with her shoes in her hand, her eyes fastened on the
door. At last it opened, and Debby's brown face peeped in. They
passed out together,--the mulatto taking the precaution to lock the
door and put the key in her pocket. Softly they went down stairs,
through the kitchen, out into the adjoining alley. Two gentlemen
with a carriage were in attendance. They sprang in, and were whirled
away. After riding some miles, the carriage was stopped; one of the
gentlemen alighted and handed the women out.

"My name is Dinsmore," he said. "I am uncle to your friend, Frank
Helper. You are to pass for my daughter, and Debby is our servant."

"And Alfred,--Mr. Noble, I mean,--where is he?" asked Loo Loo.

"He will follow in good time. Ask no more questions now."

The carriage rolled away; and the party it had conveyed were soon on
their way to the North by an express-train.

It would be impossible to describe the anxiety Alfred had endured
from the time Loo Loo became the property of the cotton-broker until
he heard of her escape. From motives of policy he was kept in
ignorance of the persons employed, and of the measures they intended
to take. In this state of suspense, his reason might have been
endangered, had not Madame Labasse brought cheering messages, from
time to time, assuring him that all was carefully arranged, and
success nearly certain.

When Mr. Grossman, late in the day, discovered that his prey had
escaped, his rage knew no bounds. He offered one thousand dollars
for her apprehension, and another thousand for the detection of any
one who had aided her. He made successive attempts to obtain an
indictment against Mr. Noble; but he was proved to have been distant
from the scene of action, and there was no evidence that he had any
connection with the mysterious affair. Failing in this, the
exasperated cotton-broker swore that he would have his heart's blood,
for he knew the sly, smooth-spoken Yankee was at the bottom of it.
He challenged him; but Mr. Noble, notwithstanding the arguments of
Frank Helper, refused, on the ground that he held New England
opinions on the subject of duelling. The Kentuckian could not
understand that it required a far higher kind of courage to refuse
than it would have done to accept. The bully proclaimed him a coward,
and shot at him in the street, but without inflicting a very serious
wound. Thenceforth he went armed, and his friends kept him in sight.
But he probably owed his life to the fact that Mr. Grossman was
compelled to go to New Orleans suddenly, on urgent business. Before
leaving, the latter sent messengers to Savannah, Charleston,
Louisville, and elsewhere; exact descriptions of the fugitives were
posted in all public places, and the offers of reward were doubled;
but the activity thus excited proved all in vain. The runaways had
travelled night and day, and were in Canada before their pursuers
reached New York. A few lines from Mr. Dinsmore announced this to
Frank Helper, in phraseology that could not be understood, in case
the letter should be inspected at the post-office. He wrote:
"I told you we intended to visit Montreal; and by the date of this
you will see that I have carried my plan into execution. My daughter
likes the place so much that I think I shall leave her here awhile in
charge of our trusty servant, while I go home to look after my
affairs."

After the excitement had somewhat subsided, Mr. Noble ascertained
the process by which his friends had succeeded in effecting the
rescue. Aunt Debby owed her master a grudge for having repeatedly
sold her children; and just at that time a fresh wound was rankling
in her heart, because her only son, a bright lad of eighteen, of
whom Mr. Grossman was the reputed father, had been sold to a
slave-trader, to help raise the large sum he had given for Loo Loo.
Frank Helper's friends, having discovered this state of affairs,
opened a negotiation with the mulatto woman, promising to send both
her and her son into Canada, if she would assist them in their plans.
Aunt Debby chuckled over the idea of her master's disappointment,
and was eager to seize the opportunity of being reunited to her last
remaining child. The lad was accordingly purchased by the gentleman
who distributed oranges in the prison, and was sent to Canada,
according to promise. Mr. Grossman was addicted to strong drink, and
Aunt Debby had long been in the habit of preparing a potion for him
before he retired to rest. "I mixed it powerful, dat ar night," said
the laughing mulatto; "and I put in someting dat de gemmen guv to me.
I reckon he waked up awful late." Mr. Dinsmore, a maternal uncle of
Frank Helper's, had been visiting the South, and was then about to
return to New York. When the story was told to him, he said nothing
would please him more than to take the fugitives under his own
protection.

SCENE V.

Mr. Noble arranged the wreck of his affairs as speedily as possible,
eager to be on the way to Montreal. The evening before he started,
Frank Helper waited upon Mr. Grossman, and said: "That handsome
slave you have been trying so hard to catch is doubtless beyond your
reach, and will take good care not to come within your power. Under
these circumstances, she is worth nothing to you; but for the sake
of quieting the uneasiness of my friend Noble, I will give you eight
hundred dollars to relinquish all claim to her."

The broker flew into a violent rage. "I'll see you both damned first,"
he replied. "I shall trip 'em up yet. I'll keep the sword hanging
over their cursed heads as long as I live. I wouldn't mind spending
ten thousand dollars to be revenged on that infernal Yankee."

Mr. Noble reached Montreal in safety, and found his Loo Loo well and
cheerful. Words are inadequate to describe the emotions excited by
reunion, after such dreadful perils and hairbreadth escapes. Their
marriage was solemnized as soon as possible; but the wife being an
article of property, according to American law, they did not venture
to return to the States. Alfred obtained some writing to do for a
commercial while Loo Loo instructed little girls in dancing and
embroidery. Her character had strengthened under the severe ordeals
through which she had passed. She began to question the rightfulness
of living so indolently as she had done. Those painful scenes in the
slave-prison made her reflect that sympathy with the actual miseries
of life was better than weeping over romances. She was rising above
the deleterious influences of her early education, and beginning to
feel the dignity of usefulness. She said to her husband, "I shall
not be sorry, if we are always poor. It is so pleasant to help
_you_, who have done so much for _me_! And Alfred, dear, I want to
give some of my earnings to Aunt Debby. The poor old soul is trying
to lay up money to pay that friend of yours who bought her son and
sent him to Canada. Surely, I, of all people in the world, ought to
be willing to help slaves who have been less fortunate than I have.
Sometimes, when I lie awake in the night, I have very solemn
thoughts come over me. It was truly a wonderful Providence that twice
saved me from the dreadful fate that awaited me. I can never be
grateful enough to God for sending me such a blessed friend as my
good Alfred."

They were living thus contented with their humble lot, when a letter
from Frank Helper announced that the extensive house of Grossman & Co.
had stopped payment. Their human chattels had been put up at auction,
and among them was the title to our beautiful fugitive. The chance
of capture was considered so hopeless, that, when Mr. Helper bid
sixty-two dollars, no one bid over him; and she became his property,
until there was time to transfer the legal claim to his friend.

Feeling that they could now be safe under their own vine and fig-tree,
Alfred returned to the United States, where he became first a clerk,
and afterward a prosperous merchant. His natural organization
unfitted him for conflict, and though his peculiar experiences had
imbued him with a thorough abhorrence of slavery, he stood aloof
from the ever-increasing agitation on that subject; but every New
Year's day, one of the Vigilance Committees for the relief of
fugitive slaves received one hundred dollars "from an unknown friend."
As his pecuniary means increased, he purchased several slaves, who
had been in his employ at Mobile, and established them as servants
in Northern hotels. Madame Labasse was invited to spend the remainder
of her days under his roof; but she came only in the summers, being
unable to conquer her shivering dread of snow-storms.

Loo Loo's personal charms attracted attention wherever she made her
appearance. At church, and other public places, people pointed her
out to strangers, saying, "That is the wife of Mr. Alfred Noble.
She was the orphan daughter of a rich planter at the South, and had
a great inheritance left to her; but Mr. Noble lost it all in the
financial crisis of 1837." Her real history remained a secret,
locked within their own breasts. Of their three children, the
youngest was named Loo Loo, and greatly resembled her beautiful
mother. When she was six years old, her portrait was taken in a
gypsy hat garlanded with red berries. She was dancing round a little
white dog, and long streamers of ribbon were floating behind her.
Her father had it framed in an arched environment of vine-work, and
presented it to his wife on her thirtieth birth-day. Her eyes
moistened as she gazed upon it; then kissing his hand, she looked up
in the old way, and said, "I thank you, Sir, for buying me."

LETTER-WRITING.

A friend, who happens to have an idea or two of his own, is
constantly advising his acquaintances in no case to become parties
to a regular correspondence. He is a great letter-writer himself, but
never answers an epistle, unless it contain queries as to matters of
fact, or be an invitation to a ball or a dinner,--unless, in a word,
real, not what he considers conventional politeness requires; in
which event, his reply is despatched at once. Under all other
circumstances, he ignores the last missive from him or her to whom
his envelope is addressed. He studiously frames his own
communications in such wise, that they do not call for an answer. He
will totally neglect an intimate friend for months, then let fly at
him epistle after epistle, and then give no sign of life for a long
while again. If asked to exchange letters once a week or once a
fortnight, he solemnly inquires whether the wind goes by machinery,
and is, after a given interval, invariably at such o'clock,--adding,
that it is his aim, not to keep up, but to keep down, correspondence.
If accused of "owing a letter," he repudiates the obligation, and
affirms that he will go to jail sooner than pay it off. If taxed
with heartlessness, he retorts by asking whether it can be the duty
of a moral being to insult a man by writing to him when there is
nothing to say.

That these notions, whether they did or did not originate in an
unfortunate love-affair, which my friend is said to have gone
through in his youth, contain grains of truth may be easily shown.

I drop a letter in the New York post-office to-day; my friend in
Boston receives it to-morrow and pens a reply at once, which finds
me in New York within twenty-four hours. He may have understood and
really answered my epistle. But suppose him to have waited a week.
New matters have, meantime, taken possession of both his mind and
mine; the topics, which were fresh when I wrote, have lost their
interest; the bridge between us is broken down. His reply is worth
little more to me than water to flowers cut a month since, or seed
to a canary that was interred with tears last Saturday.

Correspondence is conversation carried on under certain peculiar
conditions, but subject to the same rules as conversation by word of
mouth, except so far forth as they may be modified by those necessary
conditions. You do not take your partner's bright saying home with
you and bring a repartee to the next ball, by which time she has
forgotten what her _bon mot_ was, and has another, every whit as good,
upon her lips; you do not return a lead in whist at the next rubber;
you do not postpone the laugh over the jokes of the dinner-table, as
is fabulously narrated of Washington, until you have retired for the
night. In social intercourse, minds must meet before one person can
be brought to another's mood or both to a middle ground; it is the
friction of contact, that creates conversation. A remark, not
answered the instant after it has been made, is never answered. The
bores and boors of society, not the gentlemen and ladies, ruminate
upon what has been said, elaborate replies at leisure, and serve
them up unseasonably.

For the purposes of correspondence, one may and must throw himself
back into the immediate past and assume the mood that was his when
he wrote and in which alone a reply can find him. But there is a
limit to this power, which is soon reached. Not many letters will
keep sweet more than two days. A little indulgence may, perhaps, be
shown toward persons who are a week or a fortnight from us by the
post, since otherwise we could never converse together. But even
they should reply to only the weightier matters suggested, since what
they say will probably be stale before it reaches the eyes for which
it was written. For the like reasons, I hold a Californian or
European correspondence to be an impossibility. As for him whose
want of politeness fixes a gulf, a week broad, between himself and
his correspondent, there is no excuse. As one reads a letter, an
answer to whatever worth answering may be in it leaps to the lips;
to give it utterance that moment is the only natural, courteous, and
truthful course. Ten days hence, the reply, which now comes of its
own accord, cannot be found; what might have been a source of
pleasure to two persons will have become a piece of thankless
drudgery. In vain the conscientious correspondent, at the appointed
time, takes the letter which she would answer out of the compartment
of her portfolio, whereon stationers, cunningly humoring a popular
weakness, have gilded,--"UNANSWERED LETTERS." In vain she cons it
with care, comments upon every observation in it, answers all its
questions one by one, and propounds a series of her own, as a basis
for the next epistle. Everything has been done decently and in order;
but the laboriously-produced letter is a letter which killeth, and
contains no infusion of the spirit that giveth life. This is not the
writer's fault. It is and must be all but impossible, after a lapse
of time, to reproduce the natural reply to a remark, or to concoct
one that shall be vital and satisfactory to the other party.

Lovers, of all persons, it would seem, might with least danger
postpone answering each other's missives, since their common topic
of interest is always with them, and the _billet-doux_, after having
been carried in the bosom a week, is as fresh as when taken from the
post-office. What need for "sweet sixteen" to consume the very night
of its reception in essaying a reply, which she might have written
next week as well, since next week they two will stand in
substantially the same relations to one another as now? "Sweet
sixteen" smiles at such coldblooded logic. "To you others," thinks
she to herself, "all sunsets may be alike; but in our horizon are
constant changes, delicate tones of color, each

'Shade so finely touched love's sense must
seize it.'

The mood into which Walter's note put me may never return again.
Now it is correspondent to the mood in which he wrote; now or never
must I reply. In this way alone can we keep up a correspondence
between our natures."

But the stupid world will not accept, cannot even understand, these
fine sayings. It looks at the question with very different eyes from
those of lovers, boarding-school misses, and persons in the first
moon of a first marriage. The peculiar relations between them may
supply inspiration and vitality to such correspondence. But would
Dean Swift have put the daily record of his life upon paper for
another than Stella to peruse? Would Leander have swum the
Hellespont for the sake of meeting any girl but Hero upon the
distant shore? As it was, he was drowned for his pains. The rest of
us cannot swim Hellesponts, keep diaries, nor correspond, as foolish
young people have done and do. We have books to read, business to
attend to, duties to perform, tastes to gratify, ambition to feed.
Who could bear to have his correspondents always upon his hands? Who
could endure such a tax upon his patience as they would become? Who
would send for his letters? Who would not rather run away from the
postmen, for fear of the next discharge?

In the analogy between conversation and correspondence may, perhaps,
be found a key to the problem. Those of us who are not lovers,
school-girls, or spinsters are not desirous of keeping up a colloquy,
day in and day out. Nor are we in the habit of resuming a subject, in
the next interview, at the precise point where we left it. A
"regular" conversation, after the fashion of a regular correspondence,
is, as between two individuals mutually unknown, or as among a number,
invariably a failure. However recently persons may have parted
company, at meeting they commence _de novo_; a new talk grows out of
the circumstances and thoughts of the moment, which ends as
naturally as it began, when the talkers get tired or are obliged to
stop. Sometimes but one of two or three opens her lips, but
conversation, nevertheless, goes on; since an open ear is the most
pointed question, and sympathy is the same, whether or not put into
words.

To conversation carried on at a distance of space and time, through
the pen, not the lips, the simple and obvious principles upon which
people act in the drawing-room or the fireside-circle are easily
applied. Between those who really wish to talk together letters
should fly as rapidly as the post can deliver them. If only one
feels like writing, he should pour forth his heart to his friend,
although that friend remain as silent as the grave. It would be as
absurd to say that either party "owes the letter," as to charge him
who had the penultimate word in a dialogue with the duty of making
the first remark the next time he encounters her who had the last
word. When the topic of immediate interest has been disposed of, a
correspondence is over. It matters as little who contributed the
larger proportion to it, as who contributes the most to a dialogue.
When the end is reached, the story is done. It is for the party who
is first in the mood of writing, after an interval of silence, to
open a new correspondence, in which there shall be no reference to
previous communications, and which may die with the first letter or
be protracted for a week or a month.

Thus we are brought to a position not very far from that taken by my
eccentric friend. General or regular correspondence is useless,
baneful, and in most cases impossible; but special correspondence,
born of the necessities of man as a social being, and circumscribed
by them, may be from time to time possible. There can be no harm in
an occasional exchange of bulletins of health and happiness, like
the "good morning" and "how d'ye do" of the street and the parlor,
or in making new-year's calls, as it were, annually upon one's
distant friends. I know two ladies who have done this as respects
each other for twenty years. But, as a rule, the shorter epistles of
this description are, the better. Some simple formula, which might
be printed for convenience's sake, would answer the purpose, and
complete the analogy with the practice of paying three-minute visits
of ceremony or of leaving a card at the door.

The employment of a printed formula in all cases, indeed, where one
feels not impelled, but obliged to write, would save both time and
temper. We lay down nine out of ten of our letters with feelings of
disappointment. Were we to imitate the Scotch servant who returned
hers to the postmaster, after a glance at the address had assured
her of the writer's health, we should be quite as well off as we are
now. My correspondent often begins with the remark, that he has
nothing to communicate. Then why in the world did he write? Why has
he covered four pages with specimens of poor chirography, which it
cost him an hour to put upon paper, and us almost as much time to
decipher? He sends me news which was in the papers a week ago; or
speculations upon it, which professional journalists have already
surfeited me with; or short treatises, after the fashion of Cicero's
epistolary productions. He talks about the weather, past, present,
and to come. He serves up, with piquant sauce, occurrences which he
would not have thought worthy of mention at his own breakfast-table.
He spins out his two or three facts or ideas into the finest and
flimsiest gossamer; or tucks them into a postscript, which alone,
with the formula, should have been forwarded. He writes in a large
hand, and resorts to every kind of device to fill up his sheet,
instead of taking the manly course of writing only so long as he had
something to say, or, if nothing, of keeping silence. A kindly
sentence or two may redeem the epistle from utter condemnation; for
love, according to Solomon, makes a dinner of herbs palatable. But
"LOVE," written beneath a formula, would have answered as well.

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