Illusions took possession of my brain. I fancied myself a great queen,
to say the least of it. A whisper got among the hills that a great
American lady with unlimited power had come seeking the welfare of the
country, and so any amount of deputations wafted on me. I will give a
few specimens.
Two men to see my lady in reference to a small still that had been
misfortunately found on the place of an old man upward of eighty. He was
fined L12, and would my lady do anything?
Two women under sentence of eviction, my lady (I saw the place of one of
these, the roof was on the floor, and a little shelter was in one corner
like the lair of a wild beast, and here she kept possession in spite of
the dreadful Captain Dopping; the agent). Would my lady send out their
two daughters to America and place them in decent places?
And here was old Roseen, old and miserable, without chick or child, or
drop's blood belonging to her in the wide world, and would my lady
remember her?
Here's the crature of a widow from the mountain with four small
children, and no man body to help her with the place, and not a four-
footed beast on it belonging to her; all went in the scarcity; would my
lady look to her a little, sure she was the neediest of all?