He rated him as a first-class hand; and yet he felt a secret dislike to him,--the native antipathy of bad to good.

He saw, plainly, that when, as was often the case, his violence and brutality fell on the helpless, Tom took notice of it; for, so subtle is the atmosphere of opinion, that it will make itself felt, without words; and the opinion even of a slave may annoy a master.

Tom in various ways manifested a tenderness of feeling, a commiseration for his fellow-sufferers, strange and new to them, which was watched with a jealous eye by Legree.

He had purchased Tom with a view of eventually making him a sort of overseer, with whom he might, at times, intrust his affairs, in short absences; and, in his view, the first, second, and third requisite for that place, was _hardness_.
Legree made up his mind, that, as Tom was not hard to his hand, he would harden him forthwith; and some few weeks after Tom had been on the place, he determined to commence the process.
One morning, when the hands were mustered for the field, Tom noticed, with surprise, a new comer among them, whose appearance excited his attention.

It was a woman, tall and slenderly formed, with remarkably delicate hands and feet, and dressed in neat and respectable garments.
By the appearance of her face, she might have been between thirty-five and forty; and it was a face that, once seen, could never be forgotten,--one of those that, at a glance, seem to convey to us an idea of a wild, painful, and romantic history.