My country eyes and ears were
confused and bewildered here; but the boys were my chief trouble.
They chased me, and called me _"Eastern Shore man,"_ till really
I almost wished myself back on the Eastern Shore. I had to
undergo a sort of moral acclimation, and when that was over, I
did much better. My new mistress happily proved to be all she
_seemed_ to be, when, with her husband, she met me at <111
KINDNESS OF MY NEW MISTRESS>the door, with a most beaming,
benignant countenance. She was, naturally, of an excellent
disposition, kind, gentle and cheerful. The supercilious
contempt for the rights and feelings of the slave, and the
petulance and bad humor which generally characterize slaveholding
ladies, were all quite absent from kind "Miss" Sophia's manner
and bearing toward me. She had, in truth, never been a
slaveholder, but had--a thing quite unusual in the south--
depended almost entirely upon her own industry for a living. To
this fact the dear lady, no doubt, owed the excellent
preservation of her natural goodness of heart, for slavery can
change a saint into a sinner, and an angel into a demon.
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