you are well cared for

"And me, too,-I would be happier!" Clotilda replies, resting her arms on the back of Franconia's lolling chair, as her eyes assumed a melancholy glare. She heaved a sigh. "You could not be happier than you are; you are well cared for; Uncle will never see you want; but you must be cheerful when I come, Clotilda,-you must! To see you unhappy makes me feel unhappy." "Cheerful!-its better said than felt. Can he or she be cheerful who is forced to sin against God and himself? There is little to be cheerful with, where the nature is not its own. Why should I be the despised wretch at your Uncle's feet: did God, the great God, make me a slave to his licentiousness?" "Suppress such feelings, Clotilda; do not let them get the better of you. God ordains all things: it is well to abide by His will, for it is sinful to be discontented, especially where everything is so well provided. Why, Uncle has learned you to read, and even to write." "Ah! that's just what gave me light; through it I knew that I had a life, and a soul beyond that, as valuable to me as yours is to you." "Be careful, Clotilda," she interrupts; "remember there is a wide difference between us. Do not cross Uncle; he is kind, but he may get a freak into his head, and sell you." Clotilda's cheeks brightened; she frowned at the word, and, giving her black hair a toss from her shoulder, muttered, "To sell me!-Had you measured the depth of pain in that word, Franconia, your lips had never given it utterance. To sell me!-'tis that. The difference is wide indeed, but the point is sharpest. Was it my mother who made that point so sharp? It could not! a mother would not entail such misery on her offspring. That name, so full of associations dear to me-so full of a mother's love and tenderness,-could not reflect pain. Nay; her affections were bestowed upon me,-I love to treasure them, I do. To tell me that a mother would entail misery without an end, is to tell me that the spirit of love is without good!" "Do not make yourself unhappy, Clotilda. Perhaps you are as well with us as you would be elsewhere. Even at the free north, in happy New England, ladies would not take the notice of you we do: many of your class have died there, poor and wretched, among the most miserable creatures ever born to a sad end. And you are not black-"