excerpt from the book..Miriam sat in her lowly cabin, painfully rocking her body to and fro;for a great sorrow had fallen upon her life. She had been the mother ofthree children, two had died in their infancy, and now her last, herloved and only child was gone, but not like the rest, who had passedaway almost as soon as their little feet had touched the threshold ofexistence. She had been entangled in the mazes of sin and sorrow; andher sun had gone down in darkness. It was the old story. Agnes, fair,young and beautiful, had been a slave, with no power to protect herselffrom the highest insults that brutality could offer to innocence. Boundhand and foot by that system, which has since gone down in wrath, andblood, and tears, she had fallen a victim to the wiles and power of hermaster; and the result was the introduction of a child of shame into aworld of sin and suffering; for herself an early grave; and for hermother a desolate and breaking heart.