I ought to charge all of you sevenpence a

The poor girl moved to the stand, pale and trembling, as if she was stepping upon the scaffold, and saw her executioners around her. She was very fair and beautiful-there was something even in her graceful motions that enlisted admiration. Here she stood almost motionless for a few moments. "Gentlemen, I ought to charge all of you sevenpence a sight for looking at her," said the auctioneer. She smiled at the remark, but it was the smile of pain. "Why don't you sell the girl, and not be dogging her feelings in this manner?" said Colonel S--. Bids continued in rapid succession from eleven hundred up to thirteen hundred and forty. A well-known trader from New Orleans stood behind one of the city brokers, motioning him at every bid, and she was knocked down to him. We learned her history and know the sequel. The Captain watched her with mingled feelings, and would fain have said, "Good God! and why art thou a slave?" The history of that unfortunate beauty may be comprehended in a few words, leaving the reader to draw the details from his imagination. Her mother was a fine mulatto slave, with about a quarter Indian blood. She was the mistress of a celebrated gentleman in Charleston, who ranked among the first families, to whom she bore three beautiful children, the second of which is the one before us. Her father, although he could not acknowledge her, prized her highly, and unquestionably never intended that she should be considered a slave. Alice, for such was her name, felt the shame of her position. She knew her father, and was proud to descant upon his honor and rank, yet must either associate with negroes or nobody, for it would be the death of caste for a white woman, however mean, to associate with her. At the age of sixteen she became attached to a young gentleman of high standing but moderate means, and lived with him as his mistress. Her father, whose death is well known, died suddenly away from home. On administering on his estate, it proved that instead of being wealthy, as was supposed, he was insolvent, and the creditors insisting upon the children being sold. Alice was purchased by compromise with the administrator, and retained by her lord under a mortgage, the interest and premium on which he had regularly paid for more than four years. Now that he was about to get married, the excuse of the mortgage was the best pretext in the world to get rid of her.