Now,'
said he, 'mammy will not tamper with your servants here, and entice them
away, as free colored men might do to our slaves if they landed at the
South from your vessels. O, mammy,' said he, 'if I had your 'arbs and
your nursing, what a pleasure it would be to be sick.'"
"Poor fellow!" said Mrs. North. "What did you say to him?"
"O," said he, "I told him that we lived under different institutions;
and that when we are among the Romans we must do as the Romans do."
"Well," said Mrs. North, "if all such prohibitions are not downright
impertinence, then I will give up."
"It's the law of the land, here," said her husband.
"Is there no 'Higher Law' in such a case?" said she. "'Higher Law,' I
believe, is sometimes the rule in Massachusetts."
"Some of our most estimable colored fellow-citizens would attend her,"
said I, "and tempt her by their own prosperity and happiness in freedom,
at the North, to cast in her lot with them and abandon her Southern
home, her mistress, and her little charge, Susan; and her own little
Cygnet's grave. They would send her, if she wished, free of charge, to
Canada, and leave her there. She could be perfectly free.
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