Consent to be mine, as nothing else on earth is mine." "Doctor, you know not what you ask," replied Iola.

"Instead of coming into this hospital a self-sacrificing woman, laying her every gift and advantage upon the altar of her country, I came as a rescued slave, glad to find a refuge from a fate more cruel than death; a fate from which I was rescued by the intervention of my dear dead friend, Thomas Anderson.
I was born on a lonely plantation on the Mississippi River, where the white population was very sparse.

We had no neighbors who ever visited us; no young white girls with whom I ever played in my childhood; but, never having enjoyed such companionship, I was unconscious of any sense of privation.

Our parents spared no pains to make the lives of their children (we were three) as bright and pleasant as they could.

Our home was so happy.