The preacher, on learning the fact, purchased her, and took her home,
feeling that his daughter Georgiana would prize her very highly.
Clotelle found in Georgiana more a sister than a mistress, who,
unknown to her father, taught the slave-girl how to read, and did much
toward improving and refining Clotelle's manners, for her own sake.
Like her mother fond of flowers, the "Virginia Maid," as she was
sometimes called, spent many of her leisure hours in the garden.
Beside the flowers which sprang up from the fertility of soil unplanted
and unattended, there was the heliotrope, sweet-pea, and cup-rose,
transplanted from the island of Cuba. In her new home Clotelle found
herself saluted on all sides by the fragrance of the magnolia.
When she went with her young mistress to the Poplar Farm, as she
sometimes did, nature's wild luxuriance greeted her, wherever she
cast her eyes.
The rustling citron, lime, and orange, shady mango with its fruits
of gold, and the palmetto's umbrageous beauty, all welcomed the child
of sorrow. When at the farm, Huckelby, the overseer, kept his eye
on Clotelle if within sight of her, for he knew she was a slave,
and no doubt hoped that she might some day fall into his hands.
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