I was really well off.
My employment was to run errands, and to take care of Tommy; to prevent his getting in the way of carriages, and to keep him out of harm's way generally.

Tommy, and I, and his mother, got on swimmingly together, for a time.

I say _for a time_, because the fatal poison of irresponsible power, and the natural influence{113} of slavery customs, were not long in making a suitable impression on the gentle and loving disposition of my excellent mistress.

At first, Mrs.Auld evidently regarded me simply as a child, like any other child; she had not come to regard me as _property_.

This latter thought was a thing of conventional growth.