She immediately took her daughter aside, and informed her of her previous night's experience, telling her how she had followed Henry to Isabella's cottage, detailing the interview with the quadroon, and her late return home alone.

The old woman urged her daughter to demand that the quadroon and her child be at once sold to the negro speculators and taken out of the State, or that Gertrude herself should separate from Henry.
"Assert your rights, my dear.

Let no one share a heart that justly belongs to you," said Mrs.Miller, with her eyes flashing fire.

"Don't sleep this night, my child, until that wench has been removed from that cottage; and as for the child, hand that over to me,--I saw at once that it was Henry's." During these remarks, the old lady was walking up and down the room like a caged lioness.

She had learned from Isabella that she had been purchased by Henry, and the innocence of the injured quadroon caused her to acknowledge that he was the father of her child.