"
But they all tarried in the great Queen City of the West--in
chains, and in a felon's cell. There our preacher visited
them again and again. There he saw the old grandfather and
his aged companion, whose weary pilgrimage of unrequited toil
and tears was nearly at its end. And there stood the young
father and the heroic wife "Margaret." Said the preacher,
"Margaret, why did you kill your child?" "It was my own," she
said, "given me of God, to do the best a mother could in its
behalf. _I have done the best I could!_ I would have done
more and better for the rest! I knew it was better for them
to go home to God than back to slavery." "But why did you not
trust in God--why not wait and hope?" "I did wait, and then
we dared to do, and fled in fear, but in hope; hope fled--God
did not appear to save--_I did the best I could!"_
And who was this woman? A noble, womanly, amiable,
_affectionate mother_. "But was she not deranged?" Not at
all--calm, intelligent, but resolute and determined.
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