"
"But she resembles in some respect Agnes, the woman I bought from
you," said Mr. Wilson. As he said the name of Agnes, the young
woman started as if she had been struck. Her pulse seemed to
quicken, but her face alternately flushed and turned pale, and
tears trembled upon her eyelids. It was a name she had heard her
mother mention, and it brought to her memory those days,--those
happy days, when she was so loved and caressed. This young woman
was Clotelle, the granddaughter of Agnes. The preacher, on
learning the fact, purchased her, and took her home, feeling that
his daughter Georgiana would prize her very highly. Clotelle
found in Georgiana more a sister than a mistress, who, unknown to
her father, taught the slave-girl how to read, and did much toward
improving and refining Clotelle's manners, for her own sake. Like
her mother fond of flowers, the "Virginia Maid," as she was
sometimes called, spent many of her leisure hours in the garden.
Beside the flowers which sprang up from the fertility of soil
unplanted and unattended, there was the heliotrope, sweet-pea, and
cup-rose, transplanted from the island of Cuba. In her new home
Clotelle found herself saluted on all sides by the fragrance of
the magnolia. When she went with her young mistress to the Poplar
Farm, as she sometimes did, nature's wild luxuriance greeted her,
wherever she cast her eyes.
The rustling citron, lime, and orange, shady mango with its fruits
of gold, and the palmetto's umbrageous beauty, all welcomed the
child of sorrow.
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