He sat doggedly down in his chair, and began sullenly sipping his tumbler of punch.
Cassy prepared herself for going out, unobserved by him; and slipped away to minister to poor Tom, as we have already related.
And what was the matter with Legree?
and what was there in a simple curl of fair hair to appall that brutal man, familiar with every form of cruelty?
To answer this, we must carry the reader backward in his history.

Hard and reprobate as the godless man seemed now, there had been a time when he had been rocked on the bosom of a mother,--cradled with prayers and pious hymns,--his now seared brow bedewed with the waters of holy baptism.

In early childhood, a fair-haired woman had led him, at the sound of Sabbath bell, to worship and to pray.

Far in New England that mother had trained her only son, with long, unwearied love, and patient prayers.

Born of a hard-tempered sire, on whom that gentle woman had wasted a world of unvalued love, Legree had followed in the steps of his father.