XXVI. MILLY'S RETURN…

XXVI. MILLY'S RETURN

The visit of Clayton and his sister, like all other pleasant things, had its end. Clayton was called back to his law-office and books, and Anne went to make some summer visits previous to her going to Clayton's plantation of Magnolia Grove, where she was to superintend his various schemes for the improvement of his negroes.

Although it was gravely insisted to the last that there was no engagement between Nina and Clayton, it became evident enough to all parties that only the name was wanting. The warmest possible friendship existed between Nina and Anne; and, notwithstanding that Nina almost every day said something which crossed Anne's nicely-adjusted views, and notwithstanding Anne had a gentle infusion of that disposition to sermonize which often exists in very excellent young ladies, still the two got on excellently well together.

It is to be confessed that, the week after they left, Nina was rather restless and lonesome, and troubled to pass her time. An incident, which we shall relate, however, gave her something to think of, and opens a new page in our story.

While sitting on the veranda, after breakfast, her attention was called by various exclamations from the negro department, on the right side of the mansion; and, looking out, to her great surprise, she saw Milly standing amid a group, who were surrounding her with eager demonstrations. Immediately she ran down the steps to inquire what it might mean. Approaching nearer, she was somewhat startled to see that her old friend had her head bound up and her arm in a sling: and, as she came towards her, she observed that she seemed to walk with difficulty, with a gait quite different from her usual firm, hilarious tread.

"Why, Milly!" she said, running towards her with eagerness, "what is the matter?"

"Not much, chile, I reckon, now I's got home!" said Milly.

"Well, but what's the matter with your arm?"

"No great! Dat ar man shot me; but, praise de Lord, he didn't kill me! I don't owe him no grudge; but I thought it wasn't right and fit that I should be treated so; and so I just put!"

"Why, come in the house this minute!" said Nina, laying hold of her friend, and drawing her towards the steps. "It's a shame! Come in, Milly, come in! That man! I knew he wasn't to be trusted. So, this is the good place he found for you, is it?"

"Jes so," said Tomtit, who, at the head of a dark stream of young juveniles, came after, with a towel hanging over one arm, and a knife half cleaned in his hand, while Rose and Old Hundred, and several others, followed to the veranda.

"Laws-a-me!" said Aunt Rose, "just to think on't! Dat's what 'tis for old fam'lies to hire der niggers out to common people!"

"Well," said Old Hundred, "Milly was allers too high feelin'; held her head up too much. An't no ways surprised at it!"

"Oh, go 'long, you old hominy-beetle!" said Aunt Rose. "Don't know nobody dat holds up der head higher nor you does!"

Nina, after having dismissed the special train of the juveniles and servants, began to examine into the condition of her friend. The arm had evidently been grazed by a bullet, producing somewhat of a deep flesh-wound, which had been aggravated by the heat of the weather and the fatigue which she had undergone. On removing the bandage round her head, a number of deep and severe flesh-cuts were perceived.

"What's all this?" said Nina.

"It's whar he hit me over de head! He was in drink, chile; he didn't well know what he was 'bout!"

"What an abominable shame!" said Nina. "Look here," turning round to Aunt Nesbit, "see what comes of hiring Milly out!"

"I am sure I don't know what's to be done!" said Aunt Nesbit, pitifully.

"Done! why, of course, these are to be bandaged and put up, in the first place," said Nina, bustling about with great promptness, tearing off bandages, and ringing for warm water. "Aunt Milly, I'll do them up for you myself. I'm a pretty good nurse, when I set about it."

"Bless you, chile, but it seems good to get home 'mong friends!"

"Yes; and you won't go away again in a hurry!" said Nina, as she proceeded rapidly with her undertaking, washing and bandaging the wound. "There, now," she said, "you look something like; and now you shall lie down in my room, and take a little rest!"

"Thank ye, honey, chile, but I'll go to my own room; 'pears like it's more home like," said Milly. And Nina, with her usual energy, waited on her there, closed the blinds, and spread a shawl over her after she had lain down, and, after charging her two or three times to go to sleep and be quiet, she left her. She could hardly wait to have her get through her nap, so full was she of the matter, and so interested to learn the particulars of her story.

"A pretty business, indeed!" she said to Aunt Nesbit. "We'll prosecute those people, and make them pay dear for it."

"That will be a great expense," said Aunt Nesbit, apprehensively, "besides the loss of her time."

"Well," said Nina, "I shall write to Clayton about it directly. I know he'll feel just as I do. He understands the law, and all about those things, and he'll know how to manage it."

"Everything will make expense!" said Aunt Nesbit, in a deplorable voice. "I'm sure misfortunes never come single! Now, if she don't go back, I shall lose her wages! And here's all the expenses of a lawsuit, besides! I think she ought to have been more careful."

"Why, aunt, for pity's sake, you don't pretend that you wish Milly to go back?"

"Oh, no, of course I don't; but, then, it's a pity. It will be a great loss, every way."

"Why, aunt, you really talk as if you didn't think of anything but your loss. You don't seem to think anything about what Milly has had to suffer!"

"Why, of course, I feel sorry for that," said Aunt Nesbit. "I wonder if she is going to be laid up long. I wish, on the whole, I had hired out one that wasn't quite so useful to me."

"Now, if that isn't just like her!" said Nina, in an indignant tone, as she flung out of the room, and went to look softly in at Milly's door. "Never can see, hear, or think of anything but herself, no matter what happens! I wonder why Milly couldn't have belonged to me!"

After two or three hours' sleep, Milly came out of her room, seeming much better. A perfectly vigorous physical system, and vital powers all moving in the finest order, enabled her to endure much more than ordinary; and Nina soon became satisfied that no material injury had been sustained, and that in a few days she would be quite recovered.

"And now, Milly, do pray tell me where you have been," said Nina, "and what this is all about."

"Why, you see, honey, I was hired to Mr. Barker, and dey said 'he was a mighty nice man;' and so he was, honey, most times; but, den, you see, honey, dere's some folks dere's two men in 'em,--one is a good one and t'oder is very bad. Well, dis yer was just dat sort. You see, honey, I wouldn't go for to say dat he got drunk; but he was dat sort dat if he took ever so little, it made him kind o' ugly and cross, and so dere wan't no suiting him. Well, his wife, she was pretty far; and so he was, too, 'cept in spots. He was one of dese yer streaked men, dat has drefful ugly streaks; and, some of dem times, de Lord only knows what he won't do! Well, you see, honey, I thought I was getting along right well, at first, and I was mighty pleased. But dere was one day he came home, and 'peared like dere couldn't nobody suit him. Well, you see, dey had a gal dere, and she had a chile, and dis yer chile was a little thing. It got playing with a little burnt stick, and it blacked one of his clean shirts, I had just hung up,--for I'd been ironing, you see. Just den he came along, and you never heerd a man go on so! I's heerd bad talk afore, but I never heerd no sich! He swore he'd kill de chile; and I thought my soul he would! De por little thing run behind me, and I just kep him off on it, 'cause I knowed he wan't fit to touch it; and den he turned on me, and he got a cow-hide, and he beat me over de head. I thought my soul he'd kill me! But I got to de door, and shut de chile out, and Hannah, she took it and run with it. But, bless you, it 'peared like he was a tiger,--screeching, and foaming, and beating me! I broke away from him, and run. He just caught de rifle,--he always kep one loaded,--and shot at me, and de ball just struck my arm, and glanced off again. Bless de Lord, it didn't break it. Dat ar was a mighty close run, I can tell you! But I did run, 'cause, thinks I, dere an't no safety for me in dat ar house; and, you see, I run till I got to de bush, and den I got to whar dere was some free colored folks, and dey did it up, and kep me a day or two. Den I started and came home, just as you told me to."

"Well," said Nina, "you did well to come home; and I tell you what, I'm going to have that man prosecuted!"

"Oh, laws, no, Miss Nina! don't you goes doing nothing to him! His wife is a mighty nice woman, and 'peared like he didn't rightly know what he was 'bout."

"Yes, but, Milly, you ought to be willing, because it may make him more careful with other people."

"Laws, Miss Nina, why, dere is some sense in dat; but I wouldn't do it as bearing malice."

"Not at all," said Nina. "I shall write to Mr. Clayton, and take his advice about it."

"He's a good man," said Milly. "He won't say nothing dat an't right. I spect dat will do very well, dat ar way."

"Yes," said Nina, "such people must be taught that the law will take hold of them. That will bring them to their bearings!"

Nina went immediately to her room, and dispatched a long letter to Clayton, full of all the particulars, and begging his immediate assistance.

Our readers, those who have been in similar circumstances, will not wonder that Clayton saw in this letter an immediate call of duty to go to Canema. In fact, as soon as the letter could go to him, and he could perform a rapid horseback journey, he was once more a member of the domestic circle.

He entered upon the case with great confidence and enthusiasm.

"It is a debt which we owe," he said, "to the character of our state, and to the purity of our institutions, to prove the efficiency of the law in behalf of that class of our population whose helplessness places them more particularly under our protection. They are to us in the condition of children under age; and any violation of their rights should be more particularly attended to."

He went immediately to the neighboring town, where Milly had been employed, and found, fortunately, that the principal facts had been subject to the inspection of white witnesses.

A woman, who had been hired to do some sewing, had been in the next room during the whole time; and Milly's flight from the house, and the man's firing after her, had been observed by some workmen in the neighborhood. Everything, therefore, promised well, and the suit was entered forthwith.

XXVII. THE TRIAL

"Well, now," said Frank Russel, to one or two lawyers with whom he was sitting, in a side-room of the court-house at E., "look out for breakers! Clayton has mounted his war-horse, and is coming upon us, now, like leviathan from the rushes."

"Clayton is a good fellow," said one of them. "I like him, though he doesn't talk much."

"Good?" said Russel, taking his cigar from his mouth; "why, as the backwoodsmen say, he an't nothing else! He is a great seventy-four pounder, charged to the muzzle with goodness! But, if he should be once fired off, I'm afraid he'll carry everything out of the world with him. Because, you see, abstract goodness doesn't suit our present mortal condition. But it is a perfect godsend that he has such a case as this to manage for his maiden plea, because it just falls in with his heroic turn. Why, when I heard of it, I assure you I bestirred myself. I went about, and got Smithers, and Jones, and Peters, to put off suits, so as to give him fair field and full play. For, if he succeeds in this, it may give him so good a conceit of the law, that he will keep on with it."

"Why," said the other, "don't he like the law? What's the matter with the law?"

"Oh, nothing, only Clayton has got one of those ethereal stomachs that rise against almost everything in this world. Now, there isn't more than one case in a dozen that he'll undertake. He sticks and catches just like an old bureau drawer. Some conscientious crick in his back is always taking him at a critical moment, and so he is knocked up for actual work. But this defending a slave-woman will suit him to a T."

"She is a nice creature, isn't she?" said one of them.

"And belongs to a good old family," said another.

"Yes," said the third, "and I understand his lady-love has something to do with the case."

"Yes," said Russel, "to be sure she has. The woman belongs to a family connection of hers, I'm told. Miss Gordon is a spicy little puss--one that would be apt to resent anything of that sort; and the Gordons are a very influential family. He is sure to get the case, though I'm not clear that the law is on his side, by any means."

"Not?" said the other barrister, who went by the name of Will Jones.

"No," said Russel. "In fact, I'm pretty clear it isn't. But that will make no odds. When Clayton is thoroughly waked up, he is a whole team, I can tell you. He'll take jury and judge along with him, fast enough."

"I wonder," said one, "that Barker didn't compound the matter."

"Oh, Barker is one of the stubbed sort. You know these middling kind of people always have a spite against old families. He makes fight because it is the Gordons, that's all. And there comes in his republicanism. He isn't going to be whipped in by the Gordons. Barker has got Scotch blood in him, and he'll hang on to the case like death."

"Clayton will make a good speech," said Jones.

"Speech? that he will!" said Russel. "Bless me, I could lay off a good speech on it, myself. Because, you see, it really was quite an outrage; and the woman is a presentable creature. And, then, there's the humane dodge; that can be taken, beside all the chivalry part of defending the helpless, and all that sort of thing. I wouldn't ask for a better thing to work up into a speech. But Clayton will do it better yet, because he is actually sincere in it. And, after all's said and done, there's a good deal in that. When a fellow speaks in solemn earnest, he gives a kind of weight that you can't easily get at any other way."

"Well, but," said one, "I don't understand you, Russel, why you think the law isn't on Clayton's side. I'm sure it's a very clear case of terrible abuse."

"Oh, certainly it is," said Russel, "and the man is a dolt, and a brute beast, and ought to be shot, and so forth; but, then, he hasn't really exceeded his legal limits, because, you see, the law gives to the hirer all the rights of the master. There's no getting away from that, in my opinion. Now, any master might have done all that, and nobody could have done anything about it. They do do it, for that matter, if they're bad enough, and nobody thinks of touching them."

"Well, I say," said Jones, "Russel, don't you think that's too bad?"

"Laws, yes, man; but the world is full of things that are too bad. It's a bad kind of a place," said Russel, as he lit another cigar.

"Well, how do you think Clayton is going to succeed," said Jones, "if the law is so clearly against him?"

"Oh, bless you, you don't know Clayton. He is a glorious mystifier. In the first place, he mystifies himself. And, now, you mark me. When a powerful fellow mystifies himself, so that he really gets himself thoroughly on to his own side, there's nobody he can't mystify. I speak it in sober sadness, Jones, that the want of this faculty is a great hindrance to me in a certain class of cases. You see I can put on the pathetic and heroic, after a sort; but I don't take myself along with me--I don't really believe myself. There's the trouble. It's this power of self-mystification that makes what you call earnest men. If men saw the real bread and butter and green cheese of life, as I see it,--the hard, dry, primitive facts,--they couldn't raise such commotions as they do."

"Russel, it always makes me uncomfortable to hear you talk. It seems as if you didn't believe in anything!"

"Oh, yes, I do," said Russel; "I believe in the multiplication table, and several other things of that nature at the beginning of the arithmetic; and, also, that the wicked will do wickedly. But, as to Clayton's splendid abstractions, I only wish him joy of them. But, then, I shall believe him while I hear him talk; so will you; so will all the rest of us. That's the fun of it. But the thing will be just where it was before, and I shall find it so when I wake up to-morrow morning. It's a pity such fellows as Clayton couldn't be used as we use big guns. He is death on anything he fires at; and if he only would let me load and point him, he and I together would make a firm that would sweep the land. But here he comes, upon my word."

"Hallo, Clayton, all ready?"

"Yes," said Clayton, "I believe so. When will the case be called?"

"To-day, I'm pretty sure," said Russel.

Clayton was destined to have something of an audience in his first plea; for, the Gordons being an influential and a largely-connected family, there was quite an interest excited among them in the affair. Clayton also had many warm personal friends, and his father, mother, and sister were to be present; for, though residing in a different part of the state, they were at this time on a visit in the vicinity of the town of E.

There is something in the first essay of a young man, in any profession, like the first launching of a ship, which has a never-ceasing hold on human sympathies. Clayton's father, mother, and sister, with Nina, at the time of the dialogue we have given, were sitting together in the parlor of a friend's house in E., discussing the same event.

"I am sure that he will get the case," said Anne Clayton, with the confidence of a generous woman and warm-hearted sister. "He has been showing me the course of his argument, and it is perfectly irresistible. Has he said anything to you about it, father?"

Judge Clayton had been walking up and down the room, with his hands behind him, with his usual air of considerate gravity. Stopping short at Anne's question, he said,--

"Edward's mind and mine work so differently, that I have not thought best to embarrass him by any conference on the subject. I consider the case an unfortunate one, and would rather he could have had some other."

"Why," said Anne, eagerly, "don't you think he'll gain it?"

"Not if the case goes according to law," said Judge Clayton. "But, then, Edward has a great deal of power of eloquence, and a good deal of skill in making a diversion from the main point; so that, perhaps, he may get the case."

"Why," said Nina, "I thought cases were always decided according to law! What else do they make laws for?"

"You are very innocent, my child," said Judge Clayton.

"But, father, the proof of the outrage is most abundant. Nobody could pretend to justify it."

"Nobody will, child. But that's nothing to the case. The simple point is, did the man exceed his legal power? It's my impression he did not."

"Father, what a horrible doctrine!" said Anne.

"I simply speak of what is," said Judge Clayton. "I don't pretend to justify it. But Edward has great power of exciting the feelings, and under the influence of his eloquence the case may go the other way, and humanity triumph at the expense of law."

Clayton's plea came on in the afternoon, and justified the expectations of his friends. His personal presence was good, his voice melodious, and his elocution fine. But what impressed his auditors, perhaps, more than these, was a certain elevation and clearness in the moral atmosphere around him,--a gravity and earnestness of conviction which gave a secret power to all he said. He took up the doctrine of the dependent relations of life, and of those rules by which they should be guided and restrained; and showed that while absolute power seems to be a necessary condition of many relations of life, both reason and common sense dictate certain limits to it. "The law guarantees to the parent, the guardian, and the master, the right of enforcing obedience by chastisement; and the reason for it is, that the subject being supposed to be imperfectly developed, his good will, on the whole, be better consulted by allowing to his lawful guardian this power."

"The good of the subject," he said, "is understood to be the foundation of the right; but, when chastisement is inflicted without just cause, and in a manner so inconsiderate and brutal as to endanger the safety and well-being of the subject, the great foundation principle of the law is violated. The act becomes perfectly lawless, and as incapable of legal defence as it is abhorrent to every sentiment of humanity and justice."

"He should endeavor to show," he said, "by full testimony, that the case in question was one of this sort."

In examining witnesses Clayton showed great dignity and acuteness, and as the feeling of the court was already prepossessed in his favor, the cause evidently gathered strength as it went on. The testimony showed, in the most conclusive manner, the general excellence of Milly's character, and the utter brutality of the outrage which had been committed upon her. In his concluding remarks, Clayton addressed the jury in a tone of great elevation and solemnity, on the duty of those to whom is intrusted the guardianship of the helpless.

"No obligation," he said, "can be stronger to an honorable mind, than the obligation of entire dependence. The fact that a human being has no refuge from our power, no appeal from our decisions, so far from leading to careless security, is one of the strongest possible motives to caution and to most exact care. The African race," he said, "had been bitter sufferers. Their history had been one of wrong and cruelty, painful to every honorable mind. We of the present day, who sustain the relation of slave-holder," he said, "receive from the hands of our fathers an awful trust. Irresponsible power is the greatest trial of humanity, and if we do not strictly guard our own moral purity in the use of it, we shall degenerate into despots and tyrants. No consideration can justify us in holding this people in slavery an hour, unless we make this slavery a guardian relation, in which our superior strength and intelligence is made the protector and educator of their simplicity and weakness."

"The eyes of the world are fastened upon us," he said. "Our continuing in this position at all is, in many quarters, matter of severe animadversion. Let us therefore show, by the spirit in which we administer our laws, by the impartiality with which we protect their rights, that the master of the helpless African is his best and truest friend."

It was evident, as Clayton spoke, that he carried the whole of his audience with him. The counsel on the other side felt himself much straitened. There is very little possibility of eloquence in defending a manifest act of tyranny and cruelty; and a man speaks, also, at great disadvantage, who not only is faint-hearted in his own cause, but feels the force of the whole surrounding atmosphere against him.

In fact, the result was, that the judge charged the jury, if they found the chastisement to have been disproportionate and cruel, to give verdict for the plaintiff. The jury, with little discussion, gave it unanimously, accordingly, and so Clayton's first cause was won.

If ever a woman feels proud of her lover, it is when she sees him as a successful public speaker; and Nina, when the case was over, stood half-laughing, half-blushing, in a circle of ladies, who alternately congratulated and rallied her on Clayton's triumph.

"Ah," said Frank Russel, "we understand the magic. The knight always fights well when his lady-love looks down! Miss Gordon must have the credit of this. She took all the strength out of the other side,--like the mountain of loadstone, that used to draw all the nails out of the ship."

"I am glad," said Judge Clayton, as he walked home with his wife, "I am very glad that Edward has met with such success. His nature is so fastidious that I have had my fears that he would not adhere to the law. There are many things in it, I grant, which would naturally offend a fastidious mind, and one which, like his, is always idealizing life."

"He has established a noble principle," said Mrs. Clayton.

"I wish he had," said the judge. "It would be a very ungrateful task, but I could have shattered his argument all to pieces."

"Don't tell him so!" said Mrs. Clayton, apprehensively; "let him have the comfort of it."

"Certainly I shall. Edward is a good fellow, and I hope, after a while, he'll draw well in the harness."

Meanwhile, Frank Russel and Will Jones were walking along in another direction.

"Didn't I tell you so?" said Russel. "You see, Clayton run Bedford down, horse and foot, and made us all as solemn as a preparatory lecture."

"But he had a good argument," said Jones.

"To be sure he had--I never knew him to want that. He builds up splendid arguments, always, and the only thing to be said of him, after it's all over, is, it isn't so; it's no such thing. Barker is terrible wroth, I can assure you. He swears he'll appeal the case. But that's no matter. Clayton has had his day all the same. He is evidently waked up. Oh, he has no more objection to a little popularity than you and I have, now; and if we could humor him along, as we would a trout, we should have him a first-rate lawyer, one of these days. Did you see Miss Gordon while he was pleading? By George! she looked so handsome, I was sorry I hadn't taken her myself!"

"Is she that dashing little flirting Miss Gordon that I heard of in New York?"

"The very same."

"How came she to take a fancy to him?"

"She? How do I know? She's as full of streaks as a tulip; and her liking for him is one of them. Did you notice her, Will?--scarf flying one way, and little curls, and pennants, and streamers, and veil, the other! And, then, those eyes! She's alive, every inch of her! She puts me in mind of a sweet-brier bush, winking and blinking, full of dew-drops, full of roses, and brisk little thorns, beside! Ah, she'll keep him awake!"

XXVIII. MAGNOLIA GROVE

Judge Clayton was not mistaken in supposing that his son would contemplate the issue of the case he had defended with satisfaction. As we have already intimated, Clayton was somewhat averse to the practice of the law. Regard for the feelings of his father had led him to resolve that he would at least give it a fair trial. His own turn of mind would have led him to some work of more immediate and practical philanthropy. He would have much preferred to retire to his own estate, and devote himself, with his sister, to the education of his servants. But he felt that he could not, with due regard to his father's feelings, do this until he had given professional life a fair trial.

After the scene of the trial which we have described, he returned to his business, and Anne solicited Nina to accompany her for a few weeks to their plantation at Magnolia Grove, whither, as in duty bound, we may follow her.

Our readers will therefore be pleased to find themselves transported to the shady side of a veranda belonging to Clayton's establishment at Magnolia Grove.

The place derived its name from a group of these beautiful trees, in the centre of which the house was situated. It was a long, low cottage, surrounded by deep verandas, festooned with an exuberance of those climbing plants which are so splendid in the southern latitude.

The range of apartments which opened on the veranda where Anne and Nina were sitting were darkened to exclude the flies; but the doors, standing open, gave picture-like gleams of the interior. The white, matted floors, light bamboo furniture, couches covered with glazed white linen, and the large vases of roses disposed here and there, where the light would fall upon them, presented a background of inviting coolness.

It was early in the morning, and the two ladies were enjoying the luxury of a tête-à-tête breakfast before the sun had yet dried the heavy dews which give such freshness to the morning air. A small table which stood between them was spread with choice fruits, arranged on dishes in green leaves; a pitcher of iced milk, and a delicate little tête-à-tête coffee-service, dispensing the perfume of the most fragrant coffee. Nor were they wanting those small, delicate biscuits, and some of those curious forms of cornbread, of the manufacture of which every southern cook is so justly proud. Nor should we omit the central vase of monthly roses, of every shade of color, the daily arrangement of which was the special delight of Anne's brown little waiting-maid Lettice.

Anne Clayton, in a fresh white morning-wrapper, with her pure, healthy complexion, fine teeth, and frank, beaming smile, looked like a queenly damask rose. A queen she really was on her own plantation, reigning by the strongest of all powers, that of love.

The African race have large ideality and veneration; and in no drawing-room could Anne's beauty and grace, her fine manners and carriage, secure a more appreciating and unlimited admiration and devotion. The negro race, with many of the faults of children, unite many of their most amiable qualities, in the simplicity and confidingness with which they yield themselves up in admiration of a superior friend.

Nina had been there but a day, yet could not fail to read in the eyes of all how absolute was the reign which Anne held over their affections.

"How delightful the smell of this magnolia blossom!" said Nina. "Oh, I'm glad that you waked me so early, Anne!"

"Yes," said Anne, "in this climate early rising becomes a necessary of life to those who mean to have any real, positive pleasure in it, and I'm one of the sort that must have positive pleasures. Merely negative rest, lassitude, and dreaming, are not enough for me. I want to feel that I'm alive, and that I accomplish something."

"Yes, I see," said Nina, "you are not nominally like me, but really housekeeper. What wonderful skill you seem to have! Is it possible that you keep nothing locked up here?"

"No," said Anne, "nothing. I am released from the power of the keys, thank fortune! When I first came here, everybody told me it was sheer madness to try such a thing. But I told them that I was determined to do it, and Edward upheld me in it: and you can see how well I've succeeded."

"Indeed," said Nina, "you must have magic power, for I never saw a household move on so harmoniously. All your servants seem to think, and contrive, and take an interest in what they are doing. How did you begin? What did you do?"

"Well," said Anne, "I'll tell you the history of the plantation. In the first place, it belonged to mamma's uncle; and, not to spoil a story for relation's sake, I must say he was a dissipated, unprincipled man. He lived a perfectly heathen life here, in the most shocking way you can imagine; and so the poor creatures who were under him were worse heathen than he. He lived with a quadroon woman, who was violent tempered, and when angry ferociously cruel; and so the servants were constantly passing from the extreme of indulgence to the extreme of cruelty. You can scarce have an idea of the state we found them in. My heart almost failed me; but Edward said, 'Don't give it up, Anne; try the good that is in them.' Well, I confess, it seemed very much as it seemed to me when I was once at a water-cure establishment,--patients would be brought in languid, pale, cold, half dead, and it appeared as if it would kill them to apply cold water; but, somehow or other, there was a vital power in them that reacted under it. Well, just so it was with my servants. I called them all together, and I said to them, 'Now, people have always said that you are the greatest thieves in the world; that there is no managing you except by locking up everything from you. But, I think differently. I have an idea that you can be trusted. I have been telling people that they don't know how much good there is in you; and now, just to show them what you can do, I'm going to begin and leave the closets and doors, and everything, unlocked, and I shall not watch you. You can take my things, if you choose; and if, after a time, I find that you can't be trusted, I shall go back to the old way.' Well, my dear, I wouldn't have believed myself that the thing would have answered so well. In the first place, approbativeness is a stronger principle with the African race than almost any other; they like to be thought well of. Immediately there was the greatest spirit in the house, for the poor creatures, having suddenly made the discovery that somebody thought they were to be trusted, were very anxious to keep up the reputation. The elder ones watched the younger; and, in fact, my dear, I had very little trouble. The children at first troubled me going into my store-closet and getting the cake, notwithstanding very spirited government on the part of the mammies. So, I called my family in session again, and said that their conduct had confirmed my good opinion; that I always knew they could be trusted, and that my friends were astonished to hear how well they did; but that I had observed that some of the children probably had taken my cake. 'Now, you know,' said I, 'that I have no objection to your having some. If any of you would enjoy a piece of cake, I shall be happy to give it to them, but it is not agreeable to have things in my closet fingered over--I shall therefore set a plate of cake out every day, and anybody that wishes to take some I hope will take that.' Well, my dear, my plate of cake stood there and dried. You won't believe me, but in fact it wasn't touched."

"Well," said Nina, "I shouldn't think you could have had our Tomtit here! Why, really this goes beyond the virtue of white children."

"My dear, it isn't such a luxury to white children to be thought well of, and have a character. You must take that into account. It was a taste of a new kind of pleasure, made attractive by its novelty."

"Yes," said Nina, "I have something in me which makes me feel this would be the right way. I know it would be with me. There's nothing like confidence. If a person trusts me, I'm bound."

"Yet," said Anne, "I can't get the ladies of my acquaintance to believe in it. They see how I get along, but they insist upon it that it's some secret magic, or art, of mine."

"Well, it is so," said Nina. "Such things are just like the divining-rod; they won't work in every hand; it takes a real, generous, warm-hearted woman, like you, Anne. But, could you carry your system through your plantation, as well as your house?"

"The field-hands were more difficult to manage, on some accounts," said Anne, "but the same principle prevailed with them. Edward tried all he could to awaken self-respect. Now, I counselled that we should endeavor to form some decent habits before we built the cabins over. I told him they could not appreciate cleanliness and order. 'Very likely they cannot,' he said, 'but we are not to suppose it;' and he gave orders immediately for that pretty row of cottages you saw down at the quarters. He put up a large bathing establishment. Yet he did not enforce at first personal cleanliness by strict rules. Those who began to improve first were encouraged and noticed; and, as they found this a passport to favor, the thing took rapidly. It required a great while to teach them how to be consistently orderly and cleanly even after the first desire had been awakened, because it isn't every one that likes neatness and order, who has the forethought and skill to secure it. But there has been a steady progress in these respects. One curious peculiarity of Edward's management gives rise to a good many droll scenes. He has instituted a sort of jury trial among them. There are certain rules for the order and well-being of the plantation, which all agree to abide by; and, in all offences, the man is tried by a jury of his peers. Mr. Smith, our agent, says that these scenes are sometimes very diverting, but on the whole there's a good deal of shrewdness and sense manifested; but he says that, in general, they incline much more to severity than he would. You see the poor creatures have been so barbarized by the way they have been treated in past times, that it has made them hard and harsh. I assure you, Nina, I never appreciated the wisdom of God, in the laws which he made for the Jews in the wilderness, as I have since I've tried the experiment myself of trying to bring a set of slaves out of barbarism. Now, this that I'm telling you is the fairest side of the story. I can't begin to tell you the thousand difficulties and trials which we have encountered in it. Sometimes I've been almost worn out and discouraged. But, then, I think, if there is a missionary work in this world, it is this."

"And what do your neighbors think about it?" said Nina.

"Well," said Anne, "they are all very polite, well-bred people, the families with whom we associate; and such people, of course, would never think of interfering, or expressing a difference of opinion, in any very open way; but I have the impression that they regard it with suspicion. They sometimes let fall words which make me think they do. It's a way of proceeding which very few would adopt, because it is not a money-making operation, by any means. The plantation barely pays for itself, because Edward makes that quite a secondary consideration. The thing which excites the most murmuring is our teaching them to read. I teach the children myself two hours every day, because I think this would be less likely to be an offence than if I should hire a teacher. Mr. Smith teaches any of the grown men who are willing to take the trouble to learn. Any man who performs a certain amount of labor can secure to himself two or three hours a day to spend as he chooses; and many do choose to learn. Some of the men and the women have become quite good readers, and Clayton is constantly sending books for them. This, I'm afraid, gives great offence. It is against the law to do it; but, as unjust laws are sometimes lived down, we thought we would test the practicability of doing this. There was some complaint made of our servants, because they have not the servile, subdued air which commonly marks the slave, but look, speak, and act, as if they respected themselves. I'm sometimes afraid that we shall have trouble; but, then, I hope for the best."

"What does Mr. Clayton expect to be the end of all this?" said Nina.

"Why," said Anne, "I think Edward has an idea that one of these days they may be emancipated on the soil, just as the serfs were in England. It looks to me rather hopeless, I must say; but he says the best way is for some one to begin and set an example of what ought to be done, and he hopes that in time it will be generally followed. It would, if all men were like him; but there lies my doubt. The number of those who would pursue such a disinterested course is very small. But who comes there? Upon my word, if there isn't my particular admirer, Mr. Bradshaw!"

As Anne said this, a very gentlemanly middle-aged man came up on horseback, on the carriage-drive which passed in front of the veranda. He bore in his hand a large bunch of different colored roses; and, alighting, and delivering his horse to his servant, came up the steps and presented it to Anne.

"There," said he, "are the first fruits of my roses, in the garden that I started in Rosedale."

"Beautiful," said Anne, taking them. "Allow me to present to you Miss Gordon."

"Miss Gordon, your most obedient," said Mr. Bradshaw, bowing obsequiously.

"You are just in season, Mr. Bradshaw," said Anne, "for I'm sure you couldn't have had your breakfast before you started; so sit down and help us with ours."

"Thank you, Miss Anne," said Mr. Bradshaw, "the offer is too tempting to be refused." And he soon established himself as a third at the little table, and made himself very sociable.

"Well, Miss Anne, how do all your plans proceed--all your benevolences and cares? I hope your angel ministrations don't exhaust you."

"Not at all, Mr. Bradshaw; do I look like it?"

"No, indeed! but such energy is perfectly astonishing to us all."

Nina's practised eye observed that Mr. Bradshaw had that particular nervous, restless air, which belongs to a man who is charged with a particular message, and finds himself unexpectedly blockaded by the presence of a third person. So, after breakfast, exclaiming that she had left her crochet-needle in her apartment, and resisting Anne's offer to send a servant for it, by declaring that nobody could find it but herself, she left the veranda. Mr. Bradshaw had been an old family friend for many years, and stood with Anne almost on the easy footing of a relation, which gave him the liberty of speaking with freedom. The moment the door of the parlor was closed after Nina, he drew a chair near to Anne, and sat down, with the unmistakable air of a man who is going into a confidential communication.

"The fact is, my dear Miss Clayton," he said, "I have something on my mind that I want to tell you; and I hope you will think my long friendship for the family a sufficient warrant for my speaking on matters which really belong chiefly to yourself. The fact is, my dear Miss Clayton, I was at a small dinner-party of gentlemen, the other day, at Colonel Grandon's. There was a little select set there, you know,--the Howards, and the Elliotts, and the Howlands, and so on,--and the conversation happened to turn upon your brother. Now, there was the very greatest respect for him; they seemed to have the highest possible regard for his motives; but still they felt that he was going on a very dangerous course."

"Dangerous?" said Anne, a little startled.

"Yes, really dangerous; and I think so myself, though I, perhaps, don't feel as strongly as some do."

"Really," said Anne, "I'm quite at a loss!"

"My dear Miss Anne, it's these improvements, you know, which you are making.--Don't misapprehend me! Admirable, very admirable, in themselves,--done from the most charming of motives, Miss Anne,--but dangerous, dangerous!"

The solemn, mysterious manner in which these last words were pronounced made Anne laugh; but when she saw the expression of real concern on the face of her good friend, she checked herself, and said,--

"Pray, explain yourself. I don't understand you."

"Why, Miss Anne, it's just here. We appreciate your humanity, and your self-denial, and your indulgence to your servants. Everybody is of opinion that it's admirable. You are really quite a model for us all. But, when it comes to teaching them to read and write, Miss Anne," he said, lowering his voice, "I think you don't consider what a dangerous weapon you are putting into their hands. The knowledge will spread on to the other plantations; bright niggers will pick it up; for the very fellows who are most dangerous are the very ones who will be sure to learn."

"What if they should?" said Anne.

"Why, my dear Miss Anne," said he, lowering his voice, "the facilities that it will afford them for combinations, for insurrections! You see, Miss Anne, I read a story once of a man who made a cork leg with such wonderful accuracy that it would walk of itself, and when he got it on he couldn't stop its walking--it walked him to death--actually did! Walked him up hill and down dale, till the poor man fell down exhausted; and then it ran off with his body. And it's running with its skeleton to this day, I believe."

And good-natured Mr. Bradshaw conceived such a ridiculous idea, at this stage of his narrative, that he leaned back in his chair and laughed heartily, wiping his perspiring face with a cambric pocket-handkerchief.

"Really, Mr. Bradshaw, it's a very amusing idea, but I don't see the analogy," said Anne.

"Why, don't you see? You begin teaching niggers, and having reading and writing, and all these things, going on, and they begin to open their eyes, and look round and think; and they are having opinions of their own, they won't take yours; and they want to rise directly. And if they can't rise, why, they are all discontented; and there's the what-'s-his-name to pay with them! Then come conspiracies and insurrections, no matter how well you treat them; and, now, we South Carolinians have had experience in this matter. You must excuse us, but it is a terrible subject with us. Why, the leaders of that conspiracy, all of them, were fellows who could read and write, and who had nothing in the world to wish for, in the way of comfort, treated with every consideration by their masters. It is a most melancholy chapter in human nature. It shows that there is no trust to be placed in them. And, now, the best way to get along with negroes, in my opinion, is to make them happy; give them plenty to eat and drink and wear, and keep them amused and excited, and don't work them too hard. I think it's a great deal better than this kind of exciting instruction. Mind," he said, seeing that Anne was going to interrupt him, "mind, now, I'd have religious instruction, of course. Now, this system of oral instruction, teaching them hymns and passages of Scripture suited to their peculiar condition, it's just the thing; it isn't so liable to these dangers. I hope you'll excuse me, Miss Anne, but the gentlemen really feel very serious about these things; they find it's affecting their own negroes. You know, somehow everything goes round from one plantation to another; and one of them said that he had a very smart man who is married to one of your women, and he actually found him with a spelling-book, sitting out under a tree. He said if the man had had a rifle he couldn't have been more alarmed; because the man was just one of those sharp, resolute fellows, that, if he knew how to read and write, there's no knowing what he would do. Well, now, you see how it is. He takes the spelling-book away, and he tells him he will give him nine-and-thirty if he ever finds him with it again. What's the consequence? Why, the consequence is, the man sulks and gets ugly, and he has to sell him. That's the way it's operating."

"Well, then," said Anne, looking somewhat puzzled, "I will strictly forbid our people to allow spelling-books to go out of their hands, or to communicate any of these things off of the plantation."

"Oh, I tell you, Miss Anne, you can't do it. You don't know the passion in human nature for anything that is forbidden. Now, I believe it's more that than love of reading. You can't shut up such an experiment as you are making here. It's just like a fire. It will blaze; it will catch on all the plantations round; and I assure you it's matter of life and death with us. You smile, Miss Anne, but it's so."

"Really, my dear Mr. Bradshaw, you could not have addressed me on a more unpleasant subject. I am sorry to excite the apprehension of our neighbors; but"--

"Give me leave to remind you, also, Miss Anne, that the teaching of slaves to read and write is an offence to which a severe penalty is attached by the laws."

"I thought," said Anne, "that such barbarous laws were a dead letter in a Christian community, and that the best tribute I could pay to its Christianity was practically to disregard them."

"By no means, Miss Anne, by no means! Why, look at us here in South Carolina. The negroes are three to one over the whites now. Will it do to give them the further advantages of education and facilities of communication? You see, at once, it will not. Now, well-bred people, of course, are extremely averse to mingling in the affairs of other families; and had you merely taught a few favorites, in a private way, as I believe people now and then do, it wouldn't have seemed so bad; but to have regular provision for teaching school, and school-hours,--I think, Miss Anne, you'll find it will result in unpleasant consequences."

"Yes, I fancy," said Anne, raising herself up, and slightly coloring, "that I see myself in the penitentiary for the sin and crime of teaching children to read! I think, Mr. Bradshaw, it is time such laws were disregarded. Is not that the only way in which many laws are repealed? Society outgrows them, people disregard them, and so they fall away, like the calyx from some of my flowers. Come, now, Mr. Bradshaw, come with me to my school. I'm going to call it together," said Anne, rising, and beginning to go down the veranda steps. "Certainly, my dear friend, you ought not to judge without seeing. Wait a moment, till I call Miss Gordon."

And Anne stepped across the shady parlor, and in a few moments reappeared with Nina, both arrayed in white cape-bonnets. They crossed to the right of the house, to a small cluster of neat cottages, each one of which had its little vegetable garden, and its plot in front, carefully tended, with flowers. They passed onward into a grove of magnolias which skirted the back of the house, till they came to a little building, with the external appearance of a small Grecian temple the pillars of which were festooned with jessamine.

"Pray what pretty little place is this?" said Mr. Bradshaw.

"This is my school-room," said Anne.

Mr. Bradshaw repressed a whistle of astonishment; but the emotion was plainly legible in his face, and Anne said, laughing,--

"A lady's school-room, you know, should be lady-like. Besides, I wish to inspire ideas of taste, refinement, and self-respect, in these children. I wish learning to be associated with the idea of elegance and beauty."

They ascended the steps, and entered a large room, surrounded on three sides by blackboards. The floor was covered with white matting, and the walls hung with very pretty pictures of French lithographs, tastefully colored. In some places cards were hung up, bearing quotations of Scripture. There were rows of neat desks, before each of which there was a little chair.

Anne stepped to the door and rang a bell, and in about ten minutes the patter of innumerable little feet was heard ascending the steps, and presently they came streaming in--all ages, from four or five to fifteen, and from the ebony complexion of the negro, with its closely-curling wool, to the rich brown cheek of the quadroon, with melancholy, lustrous eyes, and waving hair. All were dressed alike, in a neat uniform of some kind of blue stuff, with white capes and aprons.

They filed in to the tune of one of those marked rhythmical melodies which characterize the negro music, and, moving in exact time to the singing, assumed their seats, which were arranged with regard to their age and size. As soon as they were seated, Anne, after a moment's pause, clapped her hands, and the whole school commenced a morning hymn, in four parts, which was sung so beautifully that Mr. Bradshaw, quite overpowered, stood with tears in his eyes. Anne nodded at Nina, and cast on him a satisfied glance.

After that, there was a rapid review of the classes. There was reading, spelling, writing on the blackboard, and the smaller ones were formed in groups in two adjoining apartments, under the care of some of the older girls. Anne walked about superintending the whole; and Nina, who saw the scene for the first time, could not repress her exclamation of delight. The scholars were evidently animated by the presence of company, and anxious to do credit to the school and teacher, and the two hours passed rapidly away. Anne exhibited to Mr. Bradshaw specimens of the proficiency of her scholars in handwriting, and the drawing of maps, and even the copying of small lithograph cards, which contained a series of simple drawing-patterns. Mr. Bradshaw seemed filled with astonishment.

"'Pon my word," said he, "these are surprising! Miss Anne, you are a veritable magician--a worker of miracles! You must have found Aaron's rod, again! My dear madam, you run the risk of being burned for a witch!"

"Very few, Mr. Bradshaw, know how much of beauty lies sealed up in this neglected race," said Anne, with enthusiasm.

As they were walking back to the house, Mr. Bradshaw fell a little behind, and his face wore a thoughtful and almost sad expression.

"Well," said Anne, looking round, "a penny for your thoughts!"

"Oh, I see, Miss Anne, you are for pursuing your advantage. I see triumph in your eyes. But yet," he added, "after all this display, the capability of your children makes me feel sad. To what end is it? What purpose will it serve, except to unfit them for their inevitable condition--to make them discontented and unhappy?"

"Well," replied Anne, "there ought to be no inevitable condition that makes it necessary to dwarf a human mind. Any condition which makes a full development of the powers that God has given us a misfortune, cannot, certainly, be a healthy one--cannot be right. If a mind will grow and rise, make way and let it. Make room for it, and cut down everything that stands in the way!"

"That's terribly levelling doctrine, Miss Anne."

"Let it level, then!" said Anne. "I don't care! I come from the old Virginia cavalier blood, and am not afraid of anything."

"But, Miss Anne, how do you account for it that the best-educated and best-treated slaves--in fact, as you say, the most perfectly-developed human beings--were those who got up the insurrection in Charleston?"

"How do you account for it," said Anne, "that the best-developed and finest specimens of men have been those that have got up insurrections in Italy, Austria, and Hungary?"

"Well, you admit, then," said Mr. Bradshaw, "that if you say A in this matter, you've got to say B."

"Certainly," said Anne, "and when the time comes to say B, I'm ready to say it. I admit, Mr. Bradshaw, it's a very dangerous thing to get up steam, if you don't intend to let the boat go. But when the steam is high enough, let her go, say I."

"Yes, but, Miss Anne, other people don't want to say so. The fact is, we are not all of us ready to let the boat go. It's got all our property in it--all we have to live on. If you are willing yourself, so far as your people are concerned, they'll inevitably want liberty, and you say you'll be ready to give it to them; but your fires will raise a steam on our plantations, and we must shut down these escape-valves. Don't you see? Now, for my part, I've been perfectly charmed with this school of yours; but, after all, I can't help inquiring whereto it will grow."

"Well, Mr. Bradshaw," said Anne, "I'm obliged to you for the frankness of this conversation. It's very friendly and sincere. I think, however, I shall continue to compliment the good sense and gallantry of this state, by ignoring its unworthy and unchristian laws. I will endeavor, nevertheless, to be more careful and guarded as to the manner of what I do; but, if I should be put into the penitentiary, Mr. Bradshaw, I hope you'll call on me."

"Miss Anne, I beg ten thousand pardons for that unfortunate allusion."

"I think," said Anne, "I shall impose it as a penance upon you to stay and spend the day with us, and then I'll show you my rose-garden. I have great counsel to hold with you on the training of a certain pillar-rose. You see, my design is to get you involved in my treason. You've already come into complicity with it, by visiting my school."

"Thank you, Miss Anne; I should be only too much honored to be your abettor in any treason you might meditate. But, really, I'm a most unlucky dog! Think of my having four bachelor friends engaged to dine with me, and so being obliged to decline your tempting offer! In fact, I must take horse before the sun gets any hotter."

"There he goes, for a good-hearted creature as he is!" said Anne.

"Do you know," said Nina, laughing, "that I thought that he was some poor, desperate mortal, who was on the verge of a proposal, this morning, and I ran away like a good girl to give him a fair field?"

"Child," said Anne, "you are altogether too late in the day. Mr. Bradshaw and I walked that little figure some time ago, and now he is one of the most convenient and agreeable of friends."

"Anne, why in the world don't you get in love with somebody?" said Nina.

"My dear, I think there was something or other left out when I was made up," said Anne, laughing, "but I never had much of a fancy for the lords of creation. They do tolerably well till they come to be lovers; but then they are perfectly unbearable. Lions in love, my dear, don't appear to advantage, you know. I can't marry papa or Edward, and they have spoiled me for everybody else. Besides, I'm happy, and what do I want of any of them? Can't there be now and then a woman sufficient to herself? But, Nina, dear, I'm sorry that our affairs here are giving offence and making uneasiness."

"For my part," said Nina, "I should go right on. I have noticed that people try all they can to stop a person who is taking an unusual course; and when they are perfectly certain that they can't stop them, then they turn round and fall in with them; and I think that will be the case with you."

"They certainly will have an opportunity of trying," said Anne. "But there is Dulcimer coming up the avenue with the letter-bag. Now, child, I don't believe you appreciate half my excellence, when you consider that I used to have all these letters that fall to you every mail."

At this moment Dulcimer rode up to the veranda steps, and deposited the letter-bag in Anne's hands.

"What an odd name you have given him!" said Nina, "and what a comical-looking fellow he is! He has a sort of waggish air that reminds me of a crow."

"Oh, Dulcimer don't belong to our régime," said Anne. "He was the prime minister and favorite under the former reign,--a sort of licensed court jester,--and to this day he hardly knows how to do anything but sing and dance; and so brother, who is for allowing the largest liberty to everybody, imposes on him only such general and light tasks as suit his roving nature. But there!" she said throwing a letter on Nina's lap, and at the same time breaking the seal of one directed to herself. "Ah, I thought so! You see, puss, Edward has some law business that takes him to this part of the state forthwith. Was ever such convenient law business? We may look for him to-night. Now there will be rejoicings! How now, Dulcimer? I thought you had gone," she said, looking up, and observing that personage still lingering in the shade of a tulip-tree near the veranda.

"Please, Miss Anne, is Master Clayton coming home to-night?"

"Yes, Dulcimer; so now go and spread the news; for that's what you want, I know."

And Dulcimer, needing no second suggestion, was out of sight in the shrubbery in a few moments.

"Now, I'll wager," said Anne, "that creature will get up something or other extraordinary for this evening."

"Such as what?" said Nina.

"Well, he is something of a troubadour, and I shouldn't wonder if he should be cudgelling his brain at this moment for a song. We shall have some kind of operatic performance, you may be sure."

XXIX. THE TROUBADOUR

About five o'clock in the evening, Nina and Anne amused themselves with setting a fancy tea-table on the veranda. Nina had gathered a quantity of the leaves of the live-oak, which she possessed a particular faculty of plaiting in long, flat wreaths, and with these she garlanded the social round table, after it had been draped in its snowy damask, while Anne was busy arranging fruit in dishes with vine-leaves.

"Lettice will be in despair, to-night," said Anne, looking up, and smiling at a neatly-dressed brown mulatto girl, who stood looking on with large, lustrous eyes; "her occupation's gone!"

"Oh, Lettice must allow me to show my accomplishments," said Nina. "There are some household arts that I have quite a talent for. If I had lived in what-'s-its-name, there, that they used to tell about in old times--Arcadia--I should have made a good housekeeper; for nothing suits me better than making wreaths, and arranging bouquets. My nature is dressy. I want to dress everything. I want to dress tables, and dress vases, and adorn dishes, and dress handsome women, Anne! So look out for yourself, for when I have done crowning the table, I shall crown you!"

As Nina talked, she was flitting hither and thither, taking up and laying down flowers and leaves, shaking out long sprays, and fluttering from place to place, like a bird.

"It's a pity," said Anne, "that life can't be all Arcadia!"

"Oh, yes!" said Nina. "When I was a child, I remember there was an old torn translation of a book called Gesner's Idyls, that used to lie about the house; and I used to read in it most charming little stories about handsome shepherds, dressed in white, playing on silver and ivory flutes; and shepherdesses, with azure mantles and floating hair; and people living on such delightful things as cool curds and milk, and grapes, and strawberries, and peaches; and there was no labor, and no trouble, and no dirt, and no care. Everybody lived like the flowers and the birds,--growing and singing, and being beautiful. Ah, dear, I have never got over wanting it since! Why couldn't it be so?"

"It's a thousand pities!" said Anne. "But what constant fight we have to maintain for order and beauty!"

"Yes," said Nina; "and, what seems worse, beauty itself becomes dirt in a day. Now, these roses that we are arranging, to-morrow or next day we shall call them litter, and wish somebody would sweep them out of the way. But I never want to to be the one to do that. I want some one to carry away the withered flowers, and wash the soiled vases; but I want to be the one to cut the fresh roses every day. If I were in an association, I should take that for my part. I'd arrange all their flowers through the establishment, but I should stipulate expressly that I should do no clearing up."

"Well," said Anne, "it's really a mystery to me what a constant downward tendency there is to everything--how everything is gravitating back, as you may say, into disorder. Now, I think a cleanly, sweet, tasteful house--and, above all, table--are among the highest works of art. And yet, how everything attacks you when you set out to attain it--flies, cockroaches, ants, mosquitoes! And, then, it seems to be the fate of all human beings, that they are constantly wearing out and disarranging and destroying all that is about them."

"Yes," said Nina, "I couldn't help thinking of that when we were at the camp-meeting. The first day, I was perfectly charmed. Everything was so fresh, so cool, so dewy and sweet; but, by the end of the second day, they had thrown egg-shells, and pea-pods, and melon-rinds, and all sorts of abominations, around among the tents, and it was really shocking to contemplate."

"How disgusting!" said Anne.

"Now, I'm one of that sort," said Nina, "that love order dearly, but don't want the trouble of it myself. My prime minister, Aunt Katy, thanks to mamma, is an excellent hand to keep it, and I encourage her in it with all my heart; so that any part of the house where I don't go much is in beautiful order. But, bless me, I should have to be made over again before I could do like Aunt Nesbit! Did you ever see her take a pair of gloves or a collar out of a drawer? She gets up, and walks so moderately across the room, takes the key from under the napkin on the right-hand side of the bureau, and unlocks the drawer, as gravely as though she was going to offer a sacrifice. Then, if her gloves are at the back side, underneath something else, she takes out one thing after another, so moderately; and then, when the gloves or collar are found, lays everything back exactly where it was before, locks the drawer, and puts the key back under the towel. And all this she'd do if anybody was dying, and she had to go for the doctor! The consequence is, that her room, her drawers, and everything, are a standing sermon to me. But I think I've got to be a much calmer person than I am, before this will come to pass in my case. I'm always in such a breeze and flutter! I fly to my drawer, and scatter things into little whirlwinds; ribbons, scarf, flowers--everything flies out in a perfect rainbow. It seems as if I should die if I didn't get the thing I wanted that minute; and, after two or three such attacks on a drawer, then comes repentance, and a long time of rolling up and arranging, and talking to little naughty Nina, who always promises herself to keep better order in future. But, my dear, she doesn't do it, I'm sorry to say, as yet, though perhaps there are hopes of her in future. Tell me, Anne,--you are not stiff and 'poky,' and yet you seem to be endowed with the gift of order. How did it come about?"

"It was not natural to me, I assure you," said Anne. "It was a second nature, drilled into me by mamma."

"Mamma! ah, indeed!" said Nina, giving a sigh. "Then you are very happy! But, come, now, Lettice, I've done with all these; take them away. My tea-table has risen out of them like the world out of chaos," she said, as she swept together a heap of rejected vines, leaves, and flowers. "Ah! I always have a repenting turn, when I've done arranging vases, to think I've picked so many more than were necessary! The poor flowers droop their leaves, and look at me reproachfully, as if they said, 'You didn't want us--why couldn't you have left us alone?'"

"Oh," said Anne, "Lettice will relieve you of that. She has great talents in the floral line, and out of these she will arrange quantities of bouquets," she said, as Lettice, blushing perceptibly through her brown skin, stooped and swept up the rejected flowers into her apron.

"What have we here?" said Anne, as Dulcimer, attired with most unusual care, came bowing up the steps, presenting a note on a waiter. "Dear me, how stylish! gilt-edged paper, smelling of myrrh and ambergris!" she continued, as she broke the seal. "What's this?

"'The Magnolia Grove troubadours request the presence of Mr. and Miss Clayton and Miss Gordon at an operatic performance, which will be given this evening, at eight o'clock, in the grove.'

"Very well done! I fancy some of my scholars have been busy with the writing. Dulcimer, we shall be happy to come."

"Where upon earth did he pick up those phrases?" said Nina, when he had departed.

"Oh," said Anne, "I told you that he was prime favorite of the former proprietor, who used to take him with him wherever he travelled, as people sometimes will a pet monkey; and, I dare say, he has lounged round the lobbies of many an opera-house. I told you that he was going to get up something."

"What a delightful creature he must be!" said Nina.

"Perhaps so, to you," said Anne; "but he is a troublesome person to manage. He is as wholly destitute of any moral organs as a jackdaw. One sometimes questions whether these creatures have any more than a reflected mimicry of a human soul--such as the German stories imagine in Cobolds and water spirits. All I can see in Dulcimer is a kind of fun-loving animal. He don't seem to have any moral nature."

"Perhaps," said Nina, "his moral nature is something like the cypress-vine seeds which I planted three months ago, and which have just come up."

"Well, I believe Edward expects to see it along, one of these days," said Anne. "His faith in human nature is unbounded. I think it one of his foibles, for my part; but yet I try to have hopes of Dulcimer, that some day or other he will have some glimmering perceptions of the difference between a lie and the truth, and between his own things and other people's. At present, he is the most lawless marauder on the place. He has been so used to having his wit to cover a multitude of sins, that it's difficult for a scolding to make any impression on him. But, hark! isn't that a horse? Somebody is coming up the avenue."

Both listened.

"There are two," said Nina.

Just at this instant Clayton emerged to view, accompanied by another rider, who, on nearer view, turned out to be Frank Russel. At the same instant, the sound of violins and banjos was heard, and, to Anne's surprise, a gayly-dressed procession of servants and children began to file out from the grove, headed by Dulcimer and several of his associates, playing and singing.

"There," said Anne, "didn't I tell you so. There's the beginning of Dulcimer's operations."

The air was one of those inexpressibly odd ones whose sharp, metallic accuracy of rhythm seems to mark the delight which the negro race feel in that particular element of music. The words, as usual, amounted to very little. Nina and Anne could hear,--

"Oh, I see de mas'r a comin' up de track, His horse's heels do clatter, with a clack, clack, clack!"

The idea conveyed in these lines being still further carried out by the regular clapping of hands at every accented note, while every voice joined in the chorus:--

"Sing, boys, sing; de mas'r is come! Give three cheers for de good man at home! Ho! he! ho! Hurra! hurra!"

Clayton acknowledged the compliment, as he came up, by bowing from his horse; and the procession arranged itself in a kind of lane, through which he and his companion rode up to the veranda.

"'Pon my word," said Frank Russel, "I wasn't prepared for such a demonstration. Quite a presidential reception!"

When Clayton came to the steps and dismounted, a dozen sprang eagerly forward to take his horse, and in the crowding round for a word of recognition the order of the procession was entirely broken. After many kind words, and inquiries in every direction for a few moments, the people quietly retired, leaving their master to his own enjoyments.

"You really have made quite a triumphal entry," said Nina.

"Dulcimer always exhausts himself on all such occasions," said Anne, "so that he isn't capable of any further virtue for two or three weeks."

"Well, take him while he is in flower, then!" said Russel. "But how perfectly cool and inviting you look. Really, quite idyllic! We must certainly have got into a fairy queen's castle!"

"But you must show us somewhere to shake the dust off of our feet," said Clayton.

"Yes," said Anne, "there's Aunt Praw waiting to show you your room. Go and make yourselves as fascinating as you can."

In a little while the gentlemen returned, in fresh white linen suits, and the business of the tea-table proceeded with alacrity.

"Well, now," said Anne, after tea, looking at her watch, "I must inform the company that we are all engaged to the opera this evening."

"Yes," said Nina, "the Magnolia Grove Opera House is to be opened, and the Magnolia Troubadour Troupe to appear for the first time."

At this moment they were surprised by the appearance, below the veranda, of Dulcimer, with three of his colored associates, all wearing white ribbons in their button-holes, and carrying white wands tied with satin ribbon, and gravely arranging themselves two and two on each side of the steps.

"Why, Dulcimer, what's this?" said Clayton.

Dulcimer bowed with the gravity of a raven, and announced that the committee had come to wait on the gentlemen and ladies to their seats.

"Oh," said Anne, "we were not prepared for our part of the play!"

"What a pity I didn't bring my opera-hat!" said Nina. "Never mind," she said, snatching a spray of multiflora rose, "this will do." And she gave it one twist round her head, and her toilet was complete.

"'Pon my word, that's soon done!" said Frank Russel, as he watched the coronet of half-opened buds and roses.

"Yes," said Nina. "Sit down, Anne; I forgot your crown. There, wait a moment; let me turn this leaf a little, and weave these buds in here--so. Now you are a Baltimore belle, to be sure! Now for the procession."

The opera-house for the evening was an open space in the grove behind the house. Lamps had been hung up in the trees, twinkling on the glossy foliage. A sort of booth or arbor was built of flowers and leaves at one end, to which the party were marshalled in great state. Between two magnolia-trees a white curtain was hung up; and the moment the family party made their appearance, a chorus of voices from behind the scenes began an animated song of welcome.

As soon as the party was seated, the curtain rose, and the chorus, consisting of about thirty of the best singers, males and females, came forward, dressed in their best holiday costume, singing, and keeping step as they sung, and bearing in their hands bouquets, which, as they marched round the circle, they threw at the feet of the company. A wreath of orange-blossoms was significantly directed at Nina, and fell right into her lap.

"These people seem to have had their eyes open. Coming events cast their shadows before!" said Russel.

After walking around, the chorus seated themselves at the side of the area, and the space behind was filled up with a dense sea of heads--all the servants and plantation hands.

"I declare," said Russel, looking round on the crowd of dark faces, "this sable cloud is turning a silver lining with a witness! How neat and pretty that row of children look!" And, as they spoke, a procession of the children of Anne's school came filing round in the same manner that the other had done, singing their school-songs, and casting flowers before the company. After this, they seated themselves on low seats in front of all the others.

Dulcimer and four of his companions now came into the centre.

"There," said Anne, "Dulcimer is going to be the centrepiece. He is the troubadour."

Dulcimer, in fact, commenced a kind of recitative, to the tune "Mas'r's in the cold, cold ground." After singing a few lines, the quartet took up the chorus, and their voices were really magnificent.

"Why," said Nina, "it seems to me they are beginning in a very doleful way."

"Oh," said Anne, "wait a minute. This is the old mas'r, I fancy. We shall soon hear the tune changed."

And accordingly, Dulcimer, striking into a new tune, began to rehearse the coming in of a new master.

"There," said Anne, "now for a catalogue of Edward's virtues! They must all be got in, rhyme or no rhyme."

Dulcimer kept on rehearsing. Every four lines, the quartet struck in with the chorus, which was then repeated by the whole company, clapping their hands and stamping their feet to the time, with great vivacity.

"Now, Anne, is coming your turn," said Nina, as Dulcimer launched out, in most high-flown strains, on the beauty of Miss Anne.

"Yes," said Clayton, "the catalogue of your virtues will be something extensive."

"I shall escape, at any rate," said Nina.

"Don't you be too sure," said Anne. "Dulcimer has had his eye on you ever since you've been here."

And true enough, after the next stanza, Dulcimer assumed a peculiarly meaning expression.

"There," said Anne, "do see the wretch flirting himself out like a saucy crow! It's coming! Now look out, Nina!"

With a waggish expression from the corner of his downcast eyes, he sung,--

"Oh, mas'r is often absent--do you know where he goes? He goes to North Carolina, for de North Carolina rose."

"There you are!" said Frank Russel. "Do you see the grin going round? What a lot of ivory! They are coming in this chorus, strong!"

And the whole assembly, with great animation, poured out on the chorus:--

"Oh, de North Carolina rose! Oh, de North Carolina rose! We wish good luck to mas'r, With de North Carolina rose!"

This chorus was repeated with enthusiasm, clapping of hands, and laughing.

"I think the North Carolina rose ought to rise!" said Russel.

"Oh, hush!" said Anne; "Dulcimer hasn't done yet."

Assuming an attitude, Dulcimer turned and sang to one of his associates in the quartet,--

"Oh, I see two stars arising, Up in de shady skies!"

To which the other responded, with animation:--

"No, boy, you are mistaken; 'Tis de light of her fair eyes!"

"That's thorough, at any rate!" said Russel. While Dulcimer went on:--

"Oh, I see two roses blowing, Togeder on one bed!"

And the other responded:--

"No, boy, you are mistaken; Dem are her cheeks so red!"

"And they are getting redder!" said Anne, tapping Nina with her fan. "Dulcimer is evidently laying out his strength upon you, Nina!"

Dulcimer went on singing:--

"Oh, I see a grape-vine running, With its curly rings, up dere!"

And the response,--

"No, boy, you are mistaken: 'Tis her rings of curly hair!"

And the quartet here struck up:--

"Oh, she walks on de veranda, And she laughs out of de door, And she dances like de sunshine Across de parlor floor. Her little feet, dey patter, Like de rain upon de flowers; And her laugh is like sweet waters, Through all de summer hours!"

"Dulcimer has had help from some of the muses along there!" said Clayton, looking at Anne.

"Hush!" said Anne; "hear the chorus."

"Oh, de North Carolina rose! Oh, de North Carolina rose! Oh, plant by our veranda De North Carolina rose!"

This chorus was repeated with three times three, and the whole assembly broke into a general laugh, when the performers bowed and retired, and the white sheet, which was fastened by a pulley to the limb of a tree, was let down again.

"Come, now, Anne, confess that wasn't all Dulcimer's work!" said Clayton.

"Well, to tell the truth," said Anne, "'twas got up between him and Lettice, who has a natural turn for versifying, quite extraordinary. If I chose to encourage and push her on, she might turn out a second Phillis Wheatly."

Dulcimer and his coadjutors now came round, bearing trays with lemonade, cake, sliced pine-apples, and some other fruits.

"Well, on my word," said Russel, "this is quite prettily got up!"

"Oh, I think," said Clayton, "the African race evidently are made to excel in that department which lies between the sensuous and the intellectual--what we call the elegant arts. These require rich and abundant animal nature, such as they possess; and, if ever they become highly civilized, they will excel in music, dancing, and elocution."

"I have often noticed," said Anne, "in my scholars, how readily they seize upon anything which pertains to the department of music and language. The negroes are sometimes laughed at for mispronouncing words, which they will do in a very droll manner; but it's only because they are so taken with the sounds of words that they will try to pronounce beyond the sphere of their understanding, like bright children."

"Some of these voices here are perfectly splendid," said Russel.

"Yes," said Anne, "we have one or two girls on the place who have that rich contralto voice which, I think, is oftener to be found among them than among whites."

"The Ethiopian race is a slow-growing plant, like the aloe," said Clayton; "but I hope, some of these days, they'll come into flower; and I think, if they ever do, the blossoming will be gorgeous."

"That will do for a poet's expectation," said Russel.

The performance now gave place to a regular dancing-party, which went on with great animation, yet decorum.

"Religious people," said Clayton, "who have instructed the negroes, I think have wasted a great deal of their energy in persuading them to give up dancing and singing songs. I try to regulate the propensity. There is no use in trying to make the negroes into Anglo-Saxons any more than making a grape-vine into a pear-tree. I train the grape-vine."

"Behold," said Russel, "the successful champion of negro rights!"

"Not so very successful," said Clayton. "I suppose you've heard my case has been appealed; so that my victory isn't so certain, after all."

"Oh," said Nina, "yes, it must be! I'm sure no person of common sense would decide any other way; and your own father is one of the judges, too."

"That will only make him the more careful not to be influenced in my favor," said Clayton.

The dancing now broke up, and the servants dispersed in an orderly manner, and the company returned to the veranda, which lay pleasantly checkered with the light of the moon falling through trailing vines. The air was full of those occasional pulsations of fragrance which rise in the evening from flowers.

"Oh, how delightful," said Nina, "this fragrance of the honeysuckles! I have a perfect passion for perfumes! They seem to me like spirits in the air."

"Yes," said Clayton, "Lord Bacon says, 'that the breath of flowers comes and goes in the air, like the warbling of music.'"

"Did Lord Bacon say that?" said Nina, in a tone of surprise.

"Yes; why not?" said Clayton.

"Oh, I thought he was one of those musty old philosophers who never thought of anything pretty!"

"Well," said Clayton, "then to-morrow let me read you his essay on gardens, and you'll find musty old philosophers often do think of pretty things."

"It was Lord Bacon," said Anne, "who always wanted musicians playing in the next room while he was composing."

"He did?" said Nina. "Why, how delightful of him! I think I should like to hear some of his essays."

"There are some minds," said Clayton, "large enough to take in everything. Such men can talk as prettily of a ring on a lady's finger, as they can wisely on the courses of the planets. Nothing escapes them."

"That's the kind of man you ought to have for a lover, Anne," said Nina, laughing; "you have weight enough to risk it. I'm such a little whisk of thistle-down that it would annihilate me. Such a ponderous weight of wisdom attached to me would drag me under water, and drown me. I should let go my line, I think, if I felt such a fish bite."

"You are tolerably safe in our times," said Clayton. "Nature only sends such men once in a century or two. They are the road-makers for the rest of the world. They are quarry-masters, that quarry out marble enough for a generation to work up."

"Well," said Nina, "I shouldn't want to be a quarry-master's wife. I should be afraid that some of his blocks would fall on me."

"Why, wouldn't you like it, if he were wholly your slave?" said Frank Russel. "It would be like having the genius of the lamp at your feet."

"Ah," said Nina, "if I could keep him my slave; but I'm afraid he'd outwit me at last. Such a man would soon put me up on a shelf for a book read through. I've seen some great men,--I mean great for our times,--and they didn't seem to care half as much for their wives as they did for a newspaper."

"Oh," said Anne, "that's past praying for, with any husband. The newspaper is the standing rival of the American lady. It must be a warm lover that can be attracted from that, even before he is secure of his prize."

"You are severe, Miss Anne," said Russel.

"She only speaks the truth. You men are a bad set," said Nina. "You are a kind of necessary evil, half civilized at best. But if ever I set up an establishment, I shall insist upon taking precedence of the newspaper."

XXX. TIFF'S GARDEN

Would the limits of our story admit of it, we should gladly linger many days in the shady precincts of Magnolia Grove, where Clayton and Nina remained some days longer, and where the hours flew by on flowery feet; but the inevitable time and tide, which wait for no man, wait not for the narrator. We must therefore say, in brief, that when the visit was concluded, Clayton accompanied Nina once more to Canema, and returned to the circle of his own duties.

Nina returned to her own estate, with views somewhat chastened and modified by her acquaintance with Anne. As Clayton supposed, the influence of a real noble purpose in life had proved of more weight than exhortations, and she began to feel within herself positive aspirations for some more noble and worthy life than she had heretofore led. That great, absorbing feeling which determines the whole destiny of woman's existence, is in its own nature an elevating and purifying one. It is such even when placed on an unworthy object, and much more so when the object is a worthy one. Since the first of their friendship, Clayton had never officiously sought to interfere with the growth and development of Nina's moral nature. He had sufficient sagacity to perceive that, unconsciously to herself, a deeper power of feeling, and a wider range of thought, was opening within her; and he left the development of it to the same quiet forces which swell the rosebud and guide the climbing path of the vine. Simply and absolutely he lived his own life before her, and let hers alone; and the power of his life therefore became absolute.

A few mornings after her return, she thought that she would go out and inquire after the welfare of our old friend Tiff. It was a hazy, warm, bright summer morning, and all things lay in that dreamy stillness, that trance of voluptuous rest, which precedes the approach of the fiercer heats of the day. Since her absence there had been evident improvement in Tiff's affairs. The baby, a hearty, handsome little fellow, by dint of good nursing, pork-sucking, and lying out doors in the tending of breezes and zephyrs, had grown to be a creeping creature, and followed Tiff around, in his garden ministrations, with unintelligible chatterings of delight.

At the moment when Nina rode up, Tiff was busy with his morning work in the garden.

His appearance, it is to be confessed, was somewhat peculiar. He usually wore, in compliment to his nursing duties, an apron in front; but, as his various avocations pressed hard upon his time, and as his own personal outfit was ever the last to be attended to, Tiff's nether garments had shown traces of that frailty which is incident to all human things.

"Bress me," he said to himself, that morning, as he with difficulty engineered his way into them, "holes here, and holes dar! Don't want but two holes in my breeches, and I's got two dozen! Got my foot through de wrong place! Por old Tiff! Laws a massy! wish I could get hold of some of dem dar clothes dey were telling 'bout at de camp-meeting, dey wore forty years in de wilderness! 'Mazing handy dem ar times was! Well, any how, I'll tie an apron behind, and anoder in front. Bress de Lord, I's got aprons, any how! I must make up a par of breeches, some of dese yer days, when de baby's teeth is all through, and Teddy's clothes don't want no mending, and de washing is done, and dese yer weeds stops a growing in de garden. Bress if I know what de Lord want of so many weeds. 'Pears like dey comes just to plague us; but, den, we doesn't know. May be dere's some good in 'em. We doesn't know but a leetle, no way."

Tiff was sitting on the ground weeding one of his garden-beds, when he was surprised by the apparition of Nina on horse-back coming up to the gate. Here was a dilemma, to be sure! No cavalier had a more absolute conception of the nature of politeness, and the claims of beauty, rank, and fashion, than Tiff. Then, to be caught sitting on the ground, with a blue apron on in front, and a red one on behind, was an appalling dilemma! However, as our readers may have discovered, Tiff had that essential requisite of good breeding, the moral courage to face an exigency; and, wisely considering that a want of cordiality is a greater deficiency than the want of costume, he rose up, without delay, and hastened to the gate to acknowledge the honor.

"Lord bress yer sweet face, Miss Nina!" he said, while the breezes flapped and fluttered his red and blue sails, "Old Tiff's 'mazin' happy to see you. Miss Fanny's well, thank ye; and Mas'r Teddy and the baby all doing nicely. Bress de Lord, Miss Nina, be so good as to get down and come in. I's got some nice berries dat I picked in de swamp, and Miss Fanny'll be proud to have you take some. You see," he said, laughing heartily, and regarding his peculiar costume, "I wasn't looking for any quality long dis yer time o' day, so I just got on my old clothes."

"Why, Uncle Tiff, I think they become you immensely!" said Nina. "Your outfit is really original and picturesque. You're not one of the people that are ashamed of their work, are you, Uncle Tiff? So, if you just lead my horse to that stump, I'll get down."

"Laws, no, Miss Nina!" said Tiff, as with alacrity he obeyed her orders. "Spects, if Old Tiff was 'shamed of work, he'd have a heap to be 'shamed of; 'cause it's pretty much all work with him. 'Tis so!"

"Tomtit pretended to come with me," said Nina, as she looked round; "but he lagged behind by the brook to get some of those green grapes, and I suspect it's the last I shall see of him. So, Tiff, if you please to tie Sylphine in the shade, I'll go in to see Miss Fanny."

And Nina tripped lightly up the walk, now bordered on either side by china asters and marigolds, to where Fanny was standing bashfully in the door waiting for her. In her own native woods this child was one of the boldest, freest, and happiest of romps. There was scarce an eligible tree which she could not climb, or a thicket she had not explored. She was familiar with every flower, every bird, every butterfly, of the vicinity. She knew precisely when every kind of fruit would ripen, and flower would blossom; and was so au fait in the language of birds and squirrels, that she might almost have been considered one of the fraternity. Her only companion and attendant, Old Tiff, had that quaint, fanciful, grotesque nature which is the furthest possible removed from vulgarity; and his frequent lectures on proprieties and conventionalities, his long and prolix narrations of her ancestral glories and distinctions, had succeeded in infusing into her a sort of childish consciousness of dignity, while at the same time it inspired her with a bashful awe of those whom she saw surrounded with the actual insignia and circumstances of position and fortune. After all, Tiff's method of education, instinctive as it was, was highly philosophical, since a certain degree of self-respect is the nurse of many virtues, and a shield from many temptations. There is also something, perhaps, in the influence of descent. Fanny certainly inherited from her mother a more delicate organization than generally attends her apparent station in life. She had, also, what perhaps belongs to the sex, a capability of receiving the mysteries and proprieties of dress; and Nina, as she stood on the threshold of the single low room, could not but be struck with the general air of refinement which characterized both it and its little mistress. There were flowers from the swamps and hedges arranged with care and taste; feathers of birds, strings of eggs of different color, dried grasses, and various little woodland curiosities, which showed a taste refined by daily intercourse with nature. Fanny herself was arrayed in a very pretty print dress, which her father had brought home in a recent visit, with a cape of white muslin. Her brown hair was brushed smoothly from her forehead, and her clear blue eyes, and fair, rosy complexion, gave her a pleasing air of intelligence and refinement.

"Thank you," said Nina, as Fanny offered her the only chair the establishment afforded; "but I'm going with Tiff out in the garden. I never can bear to be in the house such days as this. You didn't expect me over so early, Uncle Tiff; but I took a notable turn, this morning, and routed them up to an early breakfast, on purpose that I might have time to get over here before the heat came on. It's pleasant out here, now the shadow of the woods falls across the garden so. How beautifully those trees wave! Tiff, go on with your work--never mind me."

"Yes, Miss Nina, it's mighty pleasant. Why, I was out in dis yer garden at four o'clock dis morning, and 'peared like dese yer trees was waving like a psalm, so sort o' still, you know! Kind o' spreading out der hands like dey'd have prayers; and dere was a mighty handsome star a looking down. I spects dat ar star is one of de very oldest families up dar."

"Most likely," said Nina, cheerily. "They call it Venus, the star of love, Uncle Tiff; and I believe that is a very old family."

"Love is a mighty good ting, any how," said Tiff. "Lord bress you, Miss Nina, it makes everyting go kind o' easy. Sometimes, when I'm studding upon dese yer tings, I says to myself, 'pears like de trees in de wood, dey loves each oder. Dey stands kind o' locking arms so, and dey kind o' nod der heads, and whispers so! 'Pears like de grape-vines, and de birds, and all dem ar tings, dey lives comfortable togeder, like dey was peaceable, and liked each oder. Now, folks is apt to get a stewin' and a frettin' round, and turning up der noses at dis yer ting, and dat ar; but 'pears like de Lord's works takes everyting mighty easy. Dey just kind o' lives along peaceable. I tink it's mighty 'structive!"

"Certainly it is," said Nina. "Old Mother Nature is an excellent manager, and always goes on making the best of everything."

"Dere's heaps done dat ar way, and no noise," said Tiff. "Why, Miss Nina, I studies upon dat ar out here in my garden. Why, look at dat ar corn, way up over your head, now! All dat ar growed dis yer summer. No noise 'bout it--'pears like nobody couldn't see when 'twas done. Dey were telling us in camp-meeting how de Lord created de heaven and de earth. Now, Miss Nina, Tiff has his own thoughts, you know; and Tiff says, 'pears like de Lord is creating de heaven and de earth all de time. 'Pears like you can see Him a doing of it right afore your face; and dem growing tings are so curus! Miss Nina, 'pears for all de world like as if dey was critters! 'Pears like each of 'em has der own way, and won't go no oder! Dese yer beans, dey will come up so curus right top o' de stalks; dey will turn round de pole one way, and, if you was to tie 'em, you couldn't make 'em go round t'oder! Dey's set in der own way--dey is, for all dey's so still 'bout it! Laws, Miss Nina dese yer tings makes Tiff laugh--does so!" he said, sitting down, and indulging in one of his fits of merriment.

"You are quite a philosopher, Tiff," said Nina.

"Laws, Miss Nina, I hopes not!" said Tiff, solemnly; "'cause one of de preachers at de camp-meeting used up dem folk terrible, I tell you! Dat ar pretty much all I could make out of de sermon, dat people mustn't be 'losophers! Laws, Miss Nina, I hope I an't no sich!"

"Oh, I mean the good kind, Uncle Tiff. But how were you pleased, upon the whole, at the camp-meeting?" said Nina.

"Well," said Tiff, "Miss Nina, I hope I got something--I don't know fa'rly how much 'tis. But, Miss Nina, it 'pears like as if you had come out here to instruct us 'bout dese yer tings. Miss Fanny, she don't read very well yet, and 'pears like if you could read us some out of de Bible, and teach us how to be Christians"--

"Why, Tiff, I scarcely know how myself!" said Nina. "I'll send Milly to talk to you. She is a real good Christian."

"Milly is a very nice woman," said Tiff, somewhat doubtfully; "but, Miss Nina, 'pears like I would rather have white teaching; 'pears like I would rather have you, if it wouldn't be too much trouble."

"Oh, no, Uncle Tiff! If you want to hear me read, I'll read to you now," said Nina. "Have you got a Bible, here? Stay; I'll sit down. I'll take the chair and sit down in the shade, and then you needn't stop your work."

Tiff hurried into the house to call Fanny; produced a copy of a Testament, which, with much coaxing, he had persuaded Cripps to bring on his last visit; and, while Fanny sat at her feet making larkspur rings, she turned over the pages, to think what to read. When she saw Tiff's earnest and eager attention, her heart smote her to think that the book, so valuable in his eyes, was to her almost an unread volume.

"What shall I read to you, Tiff? What do you want to hear?"

"Well, I wants to find out de shortest way I ken, how dese yer chil'en's to be got to heaven!" said Tiff. "Dis yer world is mighty well long as it holds out; but, den, yer see, it don't last forever! Tings is passing away!"

Nina thought a moment. The great question of questions, so earnestly proposed to her! The simple, childlike old soul hanging confidingly on her answer! At last she said, with a seriousness quite unusual with her:--

"Tiff, I think the best thing I can do is to read to you about our Saviour. He came down into this world to show us the way to heaven. And I'll read you, when I come here days, all that there is about Him--all he said and did; and then, perhaps, you'll see the way yourself. Perhaps," she added, with a sigh, "I shall, too!"

As she spoke, a sudden breeze of air shook the clusters of a prairie-rose, which was climbing into the tree under which she was sitting, and a shower of rose-leaves fell around her.

"Yes," she said to herself, as the rose-leaves fell on her book, "it's quite true, what he says. Everything is passing!"

And now, amid the murmur of the pine-trees, and the rustling of the garden-vines, came on the ear of the listeners the first words of that sweet and ancient story:--

"Now, when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, in the days of Herod the King, behold there came wise men from the East, saying, 'Where is He that is born King of the Jews? For we have seen his star in the East, and are come to worship Him.'"

Probably more cultivated minds would have checked the progress of the legend by a thousand questions, statistical and geographical, as to where Jerusalem was, and who the wise men were, and how far the East was from Jerusalem, and whether it was probable they would travel so far. But Nina was reading to children, and to an old child-man, in whose grotesque and fanciful nature there was yet treasured a believing sweetness, like the amulets supposed to belong to the good genii of the fairy tales. The quick fancy of her auditors made reality of the story as it went along. A cloudy Jerusalem built itself up immediately in their souls, and became as well known to them as the neighboring town of E----. Herod, the king, became a real walking personage in their minds, with a crown on his head. And Tiff immediately discerned a resemblance between him and a certain domineering old General Eaton, who used greatly to withstand the cause of virtue, and the Peytons, in the neighborhood where he was brought up. Tiff's indignation, when the slaughter of the innocents was narrated, was perfectly outrageous. He declared "He wouldn't have believed that of King Herod, bad as he was!" and, good-hearted and inoffensive as Tiff was in general, it really seemed to afford him comfort, "dat de debil had got dat ar man 'fore now."

"Sarves him right, too!" said Tiff, striking fiercely at a weed with his hoe. "Killing all dem por little chil'en! Why, what harm had dey done him, any way? Wonder what he thought of hisself!"

Nina found it necessary to tranquillize the good creature, to get a hearing for the rest of the story. She went on reading of the wild night-journey of the wise men, and how the star went before them till it stood over the place where the child was. How they went in, and saw the young child, and Mary his mother, and fell down before him, offering gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

"Lord bless you! I wish I'd a been dar!" said Tiff. "And dat ar chile was de Lord of glory, sure 'nough, Miss Nina! I hearn 'em sing dis yer hymn at de camp-meeting--you know, 'bout cold on his cradle. You know it goes dis yer way." And Tiff sung, to a kind of rocking lullaby, words whose poetic imagery had hit his fancy before he knew their meaning.

"Cold on his cradle the dew-drops are shining, Low lies his head with the beasts of the stall; Angels adore, in slumber reclining, Maker, and Saviour, and Monarch of all."

Nina had never realized, till she felt it in the undoubting faith of her listeners, the wild, exquisite poetry of that legend, which, like an immortal lily, blooms in the heart of Christianity as spotless and as tender now as eighteen hundred years ago.

That child of Bethlehem, when afterwards he taught in Galilee, spoke of seed which fell into a good and honest heart; and words could not have been more descriptive of the nature which was now receiving this seed of Paradise.

When Nina had finished her reading, she found her own heart touched by the effect which she had produced. The nursing, child-loving Old Tiff was ready, in a moment, to bow before his Redeemer, enshrined in the form of an infant; and it seemed as if the air around him had been made sacred by the sweetness of the story.

As Nina was mounting her horse to return, Tiff brought out a little basket full of wild raspberries.

"Tiff wants to give you something," he said.

"Thank you, Uncle Tiff. How delightful! Now, if you'll only give me a cluster of your Michigan rose!"

Proud and happy was Tiff, and, pulling down the very topmost cluster of his rose, he presented it to her. Alas! before Nina reached home, it hung drooping from the heat.

"The grass withereth, and the flower fadeth; but the word of our God shall stand forever."

XXXI. THE WARNING

In life organized as it is at the South, there are two currents:--one, the current of the master's fortunes, feelings, and hopes; the other, that of the slave's. It is a melancholy fact in the history of the human race, as yet, that there have been multitudes who follow the triumphal march of life only as captives, to whom the voice of the trumpet, the waving of the banners, the shouts of the people, only add to the bitterness of enthralment.

While life to Nina was daily unfolding in brighter colors, the slave-brother at her side was destined to feel an additional burden on his already unhappy lot.

It was toward evening, after having completed his daily cares, that he went to the post-office for the family letters. Among these, one was directed to himself, and he slowly perused it as he rode home through the woods. It was as follows:

MY DEAR BROTHER,--I told you how comfortably we were living on our place--I and my children. Since then, everything has been changed. Mr. Tom Gordon came here and put in a suit for the estate, and attached me and my children as slaves. He is a dreadful man. The case has been tried and gone against us. The judge said that both deeds of emancipation--both the one executed in Ohio, and the one here--were of no effect; that my boy was a slave, and could no more hold property than a mule before a plough. I had some good friends here, and people pitied me very much; but nobody could help me. Tom Gordon is a bad man--a very bad man. I cannot tell you all that he said to me. I only tell you that I will kill myself and my children before we will be his slaves. Harry, I have been free, and I know what liberty is. My children have been brought up free, and if I can help it they never shall know what slavery is. I have got away, and am hiding with a colored family here in Natchez. I hope to get to Cincinnati, where I have friends.

My dear brother, I did hope to do something for you. Now I cannot. Nor can you do anything for me. The law is on the side of our oppressors; but I hope God will help us. Farewell! Your affectionate

SISTER.

It is difficult to fathom the feelings of a person brought up in a position so wholly unnatural as that of Harry. The feelings which had been cultivated in him by education, and the indulgence of his nominal possessors, were those of an honorable and gentlemanly man. His position was absolutely that of the common slave, without one legal claim to anything on earth, one legal right of protection in any relation of life. What any man of strong nature would feel on hearing such tidings from a sister, Harry felt.

In a moment there rose up before his mind the picture of Nina in all her happiness and buoyancy--in all the fortunate accessories in her lot. Had the vague thoughts which crowded on his mind been expressed in words, they might have been something like these:--

"I have two sisters, daughters of one father, both beautiful, both amiable and good; but one has rank, and position, and wealth, and ease, and pleasure; the other is an outcast, unprotected, given up to the brutal violence of a vile and wicked man. She has been a good wife, and a good mother. Her husband has done all he could to save her; but the cruel hand of the law grasps her and her children, and hurls them back into the abyss from which it was his life-study to raise them. And I can do nothing! I am not even a man! And this curse is on me, and on my wife, and on my children and children's children, forever! Yes, what does the judge say, in this letter? 'He can no more own anything than the mule before his plough!' That's to be the fate of every child of mine! And yet people say, 'You have all you want; why are you not happy?' I wish they could try it! Do they think broadcloth coats and gold watches can comfort a man for all this?"

Harry rode along, with his hands clenched upon the letter, the reins drooping from the horse's neck, in the same unfrequented path where he had twice before met Dred. Looking up, he saw him the third time, standing silently, as if he had risen from the ground.

"Where did you come from?" said he. "Seems to me you are always at hand when anything is going against me!"

"Went not my spirit with thee?" said Dred. "Have I not seen it all? It is because we will bear this, that we have it to bear, Harry."

"But," said Harry, "what can we do?"

"Do? What does the wild horse do? Launch out our hoofs! rear up, and come down on them! What does the rattlesnake do? Lie in their path, and bite! Why did they make slaves of us? They tried the wild Indians first. Why didn't they keep to them? They wouldn't be slaves, and we will! They that will bear the yoke, may bear it!"

"But," said Harry, "Dred, this is all utterly hopeless. Without any means, or combination, or leaders, we should only rush on to our own destruction."

"Let us die, then!" said Dred. "What if we do die? What great matter is that? If they bruise our head, we can sting their heels? Nat Turner--they killed him; but the fear of him almost drove them to set free their slaves! Yes, it was argued among them. They came within two or three votes of it in their assembly. A little more fear, and they would have done it. If my father had succeeded, the slaves in Carolina would be free to-day. Die?--Why not die? Christ was crucified! Has everything dropped out of you, that you can't die--that you'll crawl like worms, for the sake of living?"

"I'm not afraid of death myself," said Harry. "God knows I wouldn't care if I did die; but"--

"Yes, I know," said Dred. "She that letteth will let, till she be taken out of the way. I tell you, Harry, there's a seal been loosed--there's a vial poured out on the air; and the destroying angel standeth over Jerusalem, with his sword drawn!"

"What do you mean by that?" said Harry.

Dred stood silent for a moment; his frame assumed the rigid tension of a cataleptic state, and his voice sounded like that of a person speaking from a distance, yet there was a strange distinctness in it.

"The words of the prophet, and the vision that he hath from the Lord, when he saw the vision, falling into a trance, and having his eyes open, and behold he saw a roll flying through the heavens, and it was written, within and without, with mourning and lamentation and woe! Behold, it cometh! Behold, the slain of the Lord shall be many! They shall fall in the house and by the way! The bride shall fall in her chamber, and the child shall die in its cradle! There shall be a cry in the land of Egypt, for there shall not be a house where there is not one dead!"

"Dred! Dred! Dred!" said Harry, pushing him by the shoulder; "come out of this--come out! It's frightful!"

Dred stood looking before him, with his head inclined forward, his hand upraised, and his eyes strained, with the air of one who is trying to make out something through a thick fog.

"I see her!" he said. "Who is that by her? His back is turned. Ah! I see--it is he! And there's Harry and Milly! Try hard--try! You won't do it. No, no use sending for the doctor. There's not one to be had. They are all too busy. Rub her hands! Yes. But--it's no good. 'Whom the Lord loveth, he taketh away from the evil to come.' Lay her down. Yes, it is Death! Death! Death!"

Harry had often seen the strange moods of Dred, and he shuddered now, because he partook somewhat in the common superstitions, which prevailed among the slaves, of his prophetic power. He shook and called him; but he turned slowly away, and, with eyes that seemed to see nothing, yet guiding himself with his usual dextrous agility, he plunged again into the thickness of the swamp, and was soon lost to view.

After his return home it was with the sensation of chill at his heart that he heard Aunt Nesbit reading to Nina portions of a letter, describing the march through some northern cities of the cholera, which was then making fearful havoc on our American shore.

"Nobody seems to know how to manage it," the letter said; "physicians are all at a loss. It seems to spurn all laws. It bursts upon cities like a thunderbolt, scatters desolation and death, and is gone with equal rapidity. People rise in the morning well, and are buried before evening. In one day houses are swept of a whole family."

"Ah," said Harry, to himself, "I see the meaning now, but what does it portend to us?"

How the strange foreshadowing had risen to the mind of Dred, we shall not say. Whether there be mysterious electric sympathies which, floating through the air, bear dim presentiments on their wings, or whether some stray piece of intelligence had dropped on his ear, and been interpreted by the burning fervor of his soul, we know not. The news, however, left very little immediate impression on the daily circle at Canema. It was a dread reality in the far distance. Harry only pondered it with anxious fear.

XXXII. THE MORNING STAR

Nina continued her visits to Tiff's garden on almost every pleasant morning or evening. Tiff had always some little offering, either berries or flowers, to present, or a nice little luncheon of fish or birds, cooked in some mode of peculiar delicacy; and which, served up in sylvan style, seemed to have something of the wild relish of the woods. In return, she continued to read the story so interesting to him; and it was astonishing how little explanation it needed--how plain honesty of heart, and lovingness of nature, interpreted passages over which theologians have wrangled in vain. It was not long before Tiff had impersonated to himself each of the disciples, particularly Peter; so that, when anything was said by him, Tiff would nod his head significantly, and say, "Ah, ah! dat ar's just like him! He's allers a puttin' in; but he's a good man, arter all!"

What impression was made on the sensitive young nature, through whom, as a medium, Tiff received this fresh revelation, we may, perhaps, imagine. There are times in life when the soul, like a half-grown climbing vine, hangs wavering tremulously, stretching out its tendrils for something to ascend by. Such are generally the great transition periods of life, when we are passing from the ideas and conditions of one stage of existence to those of another. Such times are most favorable for the presentation of the higher truths of religion. In the hazy, slumberous stillness of that midsummer atmosphere, in the long, silent rides through the pines. Nina half awakened from the thoughtless dreams of childhood, yearning for something nobler than she yet had lived for, thought over, and revolved in her mind, this beautiful and spotless image of God, revealed in man, which her daily readings presented; and the world that he created seemed to whisper to her in every pulsation of its air, in every breath of its flowers, in the fanning of its winds, "He still liveth, and he loveth thee." The voice of the Good Shepherd fell on the ear of the wandering lamb, calling her to his arms; and Nina found herself one day unconsciously repeating, as she returned through the woods, words which she had often heard read at church:--

"When thou saidst unto me, Seek ye my face, my heart said unto thee, Thy face, Lord, will I seek."

Nina had often dreaded the idea of becoming a Christian, as one shrinks from the idea of a cold, dreary passage which must be passed to gain a quiet home. But suddenly, as if by some gentle invisible hand, the veil seemed to be drawn which hid the face of Almighty Love from her view. She beheld the earth and the heavens transfigured in the light of his smile. A strange and unspeakable joy arose within her, as if some loving presence were always near her. It was with her when she laid down at night, and when she awoke in the morning the strange happiness had not departed. Her feelings may be best expressed by an extract from a letter which she wrote at this time to Clayton:--

"It seems to me that I have felt a greater change in me within the last two months than in my whole life before. When I look back at what I was in New York, three months ago, actually I hardly know myself. It seems to me in those old days that life was only a frolic to me, as it is to the kitten. I don't really think that there was much harm in me, only the want of good. In those days, sometimes I used to have a sort of dim longing to be better, particularly when Livy Ray was at school. It seemed as if she woke up something that had been asleep in me; but she went away, and I fell asleep again, and life went on like a dream. Then I became acquainted with you, and you began to rouse me again, and for some time I thought I didn't like to wake; it was just as it is when one lies asleep in the morning--it's so pleasant to sleep and dream, that one resists any one who tries to bring them back to life. I used to feel quite pettish when I first knew you, and sometimes wished you'd let me alone, because I saw that you belonged to a different kind of sphere from what I'd been living in. And I had a presentiment that, if I let you go on, life would have to be something more than a joke with me. But you would, like a very indiscreet man as you are, you would insist on being in sober earnest.

"I used to think that I had no heart; I begin to think I have a good deal now. Every day it seems as if I could love more and more; and a great many things are growing clear to me that I didn't use to understand, and I'm growing happier every day.

"You know my queer old protégé, Uncle Tiff, who lives in the woods here. For some time past I have been to his house every day, reading to him in the Testament, and it has had a very great effect on me. It affected me very much, in the first place, that he seemed so very earnest about religion, when I, who ought to know so much more, was so indifferent to it; and when the old creature, with tears in his eyes, actually insisted upon it that I should show his children the road to heaven, then I began to read to him the Testament, the life of Jesus. I didn't know myself how beautiful it was--how suited to all our wants. It seemed to me I never saw so much beauty in anything before; and it seems as if it had waked a new life in me. Everything is changed; and it is the beauty of Christ that has changed it. You know I always loved beauty above all things, in music, in nature, and in flowers; but it seems to me that I see something now in Jesus more beautiful than all. It seems as if all these had been shadows of beauty, but he is the substance. It is strange, but I have a sense of him, his living and presence, that sometimes almost overpowers me. It seems as if he had been following me always, but I had not seen him. He has been a good shepherd, seeking the thoughtless lamb. He has, all my life, been calling me child; but till lately my heart has never answered, Father! Is this religion? Is this what people mean by conversion? I tried to tell Aunt Nesbit how I felt, because now I feel kinder to everybody; and really my heart smote me to think how much fun I had made of her, and now I begin to love her very much. She was so anxious I should talk with Mr. Titmarsh, because he is a minister. Well, you know I didn't want to do it, but I thought I ought to, because poor aunty really seemed to feel anxious I should. I suppose, if I were as perfect as I ought to be, a good man's stiff ways wouldn't trouble me so. But stiff people, you know, are my particular temptation.

"He came and made a pastoral call, the other day, and talked to me. I don't think he understood me very well, and I'm sure I didn't understand him. He told me how many kinds of faith there were, and how many kinds of love. I believe there were three kinds of faith, and two kinds of love; and he thought it was important to know whether I had got the right kind. He said we ought not to love God because he loves us, but because he is holy. He wanted to know whether I had any just views of sin, as an infinite evil; and I told him I hadn't the least idea of what infinite was; and that I hadn't any views of anything, but the beauty of Christ; that I didn't understand anything about the different sorts of faith, but that I felt perfectly sure that Jesus is so good that he would make me feel right, and give me right views, and do everything for me that I need.

"He wanted to know if I loved him because he magnified the law, and made it honorable; and I told him I didn't understand what that meant.

"I don't think, on the whole, that the talk did me much good. It only confused me, and made me very uncomfortable. But I went out to Old Tiff's in the evening, and read how Jesus received the little children. You never saw anybody so delighted as Old Tiff was. He got me to read it to him three or four times over; and now he gets me to read it every time I go there, and he says he likes it better than any other part of the Testament. Tiff and I get along very well together. He doesn't know any more about faith than I do, and hasn't any better views than I have. Aunt Nesbit is troubled about me, because I'm so happy. She says she's afraid I haven't any sense of sin. Don't you remember my telling you how happy I felt the first time I heard real music? I thought, before that, that I could sing pretty well; but in one hour all my music became trash in my eyes. And yet, I would not have missed it for the world. So it is now. That beautiful life of Jesus--so sweet, so calm, so pure, so unselfish, so perfectly natural, and yet so far beyond nature--has shown me what a poor, sinful, low creature I am; and yet I rejoice. I feel, sometimes, as I did when I first heard a full orchestra play some of Mozart's divine harmonies. I forgot that I was alive; I lost all thought of myself entirely; and I was perfectly happy. So it is now. This loveliness and beauty that I see makes me happy without any thought of myself. It seems to me, sometimes, that while I see it I never can suffer.

"There is another thing that is strange to me; and that is, that the Bible has grown so beautiful to me. It seems to me that it has been all my life like the transparent picture, without any light behind it; and now it is all illuminated, and its words are full of meaning to me. I am light-hearted and happy--happier than ever I was. Do you remember, the first day you came to Canema, that I told you it seemed so sad that we must die? That feeling is all gone, now. I feel that Jesus is everywhere, and that there is no such thing as dying; it is only going out of one room into another.

"Everybody wonders to see how light-hearted I am; and poor aunty says, 'she trembles for me.' I couldn't help thinking of that, the other morning I was reading to Tiff; what Jesus said when they asked him why his disciples did not fast: 'Can the children of the bride-chamber mourn while the bridegroom is with them?'

"Now, my dear friend, you must tell me what you think of all this, because, you know, I always tell you everything. I have written to Livy about it, because I know it will make her so happy. Milly seems to understand it all, and what she says to me really helps me very much. I always used to think that Milly had some strange, beautiful kind of inward life, that I knew nothing of, because she would speak with so much certainty of God's love, and act as if it was so real to her; and she would tell me so earnestly, 'Chile, he loves you!' Now I see into it--that mystery of his love to us, and how he overcomes and subdues all things by love; and I understand how 'perfect love casteth out fear.'"

To this letter Nina soon received an answer, from which also we give an extract:--

"If I was so happy, my dearest one, as to be able to awaken that deeper and higher nature which I always knew was in you, I thank God. But, if I ever was in any respect your teacher, you have passed beyond my teachings now. Your childlike simplicity of nature makes you a better scholar than I in that school where the first step is to forget all our worldly wisdom and become a little child. We men have much more to contend with, in the pride of our nature, in our habits of worldly reasoning. It takes us long to learn the lesson that faith is the highest wisdom. Don't trouble your head, dear Nina, with Aunt Nesbit or Mr. Titmarsh. What you feel is faith. They define it, and you feel it. And there's all the difference between the definition and the feeling, that there is between the husk and the corn.

"As for me, I am less happy than you. Religion seems to me to have two parts to it. One part is the aspiration of man's nature, and the other is God's answer to those aspirations. I have, as yet, only the first; perhaps, because I am less simple and less true; perhaps, because I am not yet become a little child. So you must be my guide, instead of I yours; for I believe it is written of the faithful, that a little child shall lead them.

"I am a good deal tried now, my dear, because I am coming to a crisis in my life. I am going to take a step that will deprive me of many friends, of popularity, and that will, perhaps, alter all my course for the future. But, if I should lose friends and popularity, you would love me still, would you not? It is wronging you to ask such a question; but yet I should like to have you answer it. It will make me stronger for what I have to do. On Thursday of this week, my case will come on again. I am very busy just now; but the thought of you mingles with every thought."

XXXIII. THE LEGAL DECISION

The time for the session of the Supreme Court had now arrived, and Clayton's cause was to be reconsidered. Judge Clayton felt exceedingly chagrined, as the time drew near. Being himself the leading judge of the Supreme Court, the declaration of the bench would necessarily be made known through him.

"It is extremely painful to me," he said, to Mrs. Clayton, "to have this case referred to me; for I shall be obliged to reverse the decision."

"Well," said Mrs. Clayton, "Edward must have fortitude to encounter the usual reverses of his profession. He made a gallant defence, and received a great deal of admiration, which will not be at all lessened by this."

"You do not understand me," said Judge Clayton. "It is not the coming out in opposition to Edward which principally annoys me. It is the nature of the decision that I am obliged to make--the doctrine that I feel myself forced to announce."

"And must you, then?" said Mrs. Clayton.

"Yes, I must," said Judge Clayton. "A judge can only perceive and declare. What I see, I must speak, though it go against all my feelings and all my sense of right."

"I don't see, for my part," said Mrs. Clayton, "how that decision can possibly be reversed, without allowing the most monstrous injustice."

"Such is the case," said Judge Clayton; "but I sit in my seat, not to make laws, nor to alter them, but simply to declare what they are. However bad the principle declared, it is not so bad as the proclamation of a falsehood would be. I have sworn truly to declare the laws, and I must keep my oath."

"And have you talked with Edward about it?"

"Not particularly. He understands, in general, the manner in which the thing lies in my mind."

This conversation took place just before it was time for Judge Clayton to go to his official duties.

The court-room, on this occasion, was somewhat crowded. Barker, being an active, resolute, and popular man, with a certain class, had talked up a considerable excitement with regard to his case. Clayton's friends were interested in it on his account; lawyers were, for the sake of the principle; so that, upon the whole, there was a good deal of attention drawn towards this decision.

Among the spectators on the morning of the court, Clayton remarked Harry. For reasons which our readers may appreciate, his presence there was a matter of interest to Clayton. He made his way towards him.

"Harry," he said, "how came you here?"

"The ladies," said Harry, "thought they would like to know how the thing went, and so I got on to my horse and came over."

As he spoke, he placed in Clayton's hand a note, and, as the paper touched his hand, a close spectator might have seen the color rise in his cheek. He made his way back to his place, and opened a law-book, which he held up before his face. Inside the law-book, however, was a little sheet of gilt-edged paper, on which were written a few words in pencil, more interesting than all the law in the world. Shall we commit the treason of reading over his shoulder? It was as follows:--

"You say you may to-day be called to do something which you think right, but which will lose you many friends; which will destroy your popularity, which may alter all your prospects in life; and you ask if I can love you yet. I say, in answer, that it was not your friends that I loved, nor your popularity, nor your prospects, but you. I can love and honor a man who is not afraid nor ashamed to do what he thinks to be right; and therefore I hope ever to remain yours,

NINA.

"P. S. I only got your letter this morning, and have but just time to scribble this and send by Harry. We are all well, and shall be glad to see you as soon as the case is over."

"Clayton, my boy, you are very busy with your authorities," said Frank Russel, behind him. Clayton hastily hid the paper in his hand.

"It's charming!" said Russel, "to have little manuscript annotations on law. It lights it up, like the illuminations in old missals. But say, Clayton, you live at the fountain-head;--how is the case going?"

"Against me!" said Clayton.

"Well, it's no great odds, after all. You have had your triumph. These after-thoughts cannot take away that.... But hush! There's your father going to speak!"

Every eye in the court-room was turned upon Judge Clayton, who was standing with his usual self-poised composure of manner. In a clear, deliberate voice, he spoke as follows:--

"A judge cannot but lament, when such cases as the present are brought into judgment. It is impossible that the reasons on which they go can be appreciated, but where institutions similar to our own exist, and are thoroughly understood. The struggle, too, in the judge's own breast, between the feelings of the man and the duty of the magistrate, is a severe one, presenting strong temptation to put aside such questions, if it be possible. It is useless, however, to complain of things inherent in our political state. And it is criminal in a court to avoid any responsibility which the laws impose. With whatever reluctance, therefore, it is done, the court is compelled to express an opinion upon the extent of the dominion of the master over the slave in North Carolina. The indictment charges a battery on Milly, a slave of Louisa Nesbit....

"The inquiry here is, whether a cruel and unreasonable battery on a slave by the hirer is indictable. The judge below instructed the jury that it is. He seems to have put it on the ground, that the defendant had but a special property. Our laws uniformly treat the master, or other person having the possession and command of the slave, as entitled to the same extent of authority. The object is the same, the service of the slave; and the same powers must be confided. In a criminal proceeding, and, indeed, in reference to all other persons but the general owner, the hirer and possessor of the slave, in relation to both rights and duties, is, for the time being, the owner.... But, upon the general question, whether the owner is answerable criminaliter, for a battery upon his own slave, or other exercise of authority or force, not forbidden by statute, the court entertains but little doubt. That he is so liable, has never been decided; nor, as far as is known, been hitherto contended. There has been no prosecution of the sort. The established habits and uniform practice of the country, in this respect, is the best evidence of the portion of power deemed by the whole community requisite to the preservation of the master's dominion. If we thought differently, we could not set our notions in array against the judgment of everybody else, and say that this or that authority may be safely lopped off.

"This has indeed been assimilated at the bar to the other domestic relations: and arguments drawn from the well-established principles, which confer and restrain the authority of the parent over the child, the tutor over the pupil, the master over the apprentice, have been pressed on us.

"The court does not recognize their application. There is no likeness between the cases. They are in opposition to each other, and there is an impassable gulf between them. The difference is that which exists between freedom and slavery; and a greater cannot be imagined. In the one, the end in view is the happiness of the youth born to equal rights with that governor on whom the duty devolves of training the young to usefulness, in a station which he is afterwards to assume among freemen. To such an end, and with such a subject, moral and intellectual instruction seem the natural means; and, for the most part, they are found to suffice. Moderate force is superadded only to make the others effectual. If that fail, it is better to leave the party to his own headstrong passions, and the ultimate correction of the law, than to allow it to be immoderately inflicted by a private person. With slavery it is far otherwise. The end is the profit of the master, his security, and the public safety; the subject, one doomed, in his own person and his posterity, to live without knowledge, and without the capacity to make anything his own, and to toil that another may reap the fruits. What moral considerations shall be addressed to such a being, to convince him what it is impossible but that the most stupid must feel and know can never be true,--that he is thus to labor upon a principle of natural duty, or for the sake of his own personal happiness? Such services can only be expected from one who has no will of his own; who surrenders his will in implicit obedience to that of another. Such obedience is the consequence only of uncontrolled authority over the body. There is nothing else which can operate to produce the effect. THE POWER OF THE MASTER MUST BE ABSOLUTE, TO RENDER THE SUBMISSION OF THE SLAVE PERFECT. I most freely confess my sense of the harshness of this proposition. I feel it as deeply as any man can. And, as a principle of moral right, every person in his retirement must repudiate it. But, in the actual condition of things, it must be so. There is no remedy. This discipline belongs to the state of slavery. They cannot be disunited without abrogating at once the rights of the master, and absolving the slave from his subjection. It constitutes the curse of slavery to both the bond and the free portions of our population. But it is inherent in the relation of master and slave. That there may be particular instances of cruelty and deliberate barbarity, where in conscience the law might properly interfere, is most probable. The difficulty is to determine where a court may properly begin. Merely in the abstract, it may well be asked which power of the master accords with right. The answer will probably sweep away all of them. But we cannot look at the matter in that light. The truth is that we are forbidden to enter upon a train of general reasoning on the subject. We cannot allow the right of the master to be brought into discussion in the courts of justice. The slave, to remain a slave, must be made sensible that there is no appeal from his master; that his power is, in no instance, usurped, but is conferred by the laws of man, at least, if not by the law of God. The danger would be great, indeed, if the tribunals of justice should be called on to graduate the punishment appropriate to every temper, and every dereliction of menial duty.

"No man can anticipate the many and aggravated provocations of the master which the slave would be constantly stimulated by his own passions, or the instigation of others, to give; or the consequent wrath of the master, prompting him to bloody vengeance upon the turbulent traitor; a vengeance generally practised with impunity, by reason of its privacy. The court, therefore, disclaims the power of changing the relation in which these parts of our people stand to each other.

* * * * * * * * *

"I repeat, that I would gladly have avoided this ungrateful question. But, being brought to it, the court is compelled to declare that while slavery exists amongst us in its present state, or until it shall seem fit to the legislature to interpose express enactments to the contrary, it will be the imperative duty of the judges to recognize the full dominion of the owner over the slave, except where the exercise of it is forbidden by statute.

"And this we do upon the ground that this dominion is essential to the value of slaves as property, to the security of the master and the public tranquillity, greatly dependent upon their subordination; and, in fine, as most effectually securing the general protection and comfort of the slaves themselves. Judgment below reversed; and judgment entered for the defendant."

During the delivery of the decision Clayton's eyes, by accident, became fixed upon Harry, who was standing opposite to him, and who listened through the whole with breathless attention. He observed, as it went on, that his face became pale, his brow clouded, and that a fierce and peculiar expression flashed from his dark-blue eye. Never had Clayton so forcibly realized the horrors of slavery as when he heard them thus so calmly defined in the presence of one into whose soul the iron had entered. The tones of Judge Clayton's voice, so passionless, clear, and deliberate; the solemn, calm, unflinching earnestness of his words, were more than a thousand passionate appeals. In the dead silence that followed, Clayton rose, and requested permission of the court to be allowed to say a few words in view of the decision. His father looked slightly surprised, and there was a little movement among the judges. But curiosity, perhaps, among other reasons, led the court to give consent. Clayton spoke:--

"I hope it will not be considered a disrespect or impertinence for me to say that the law of slavery, and the nature of that institution, have for the first time been made known to me to-day in their true character. I had before flattered myself with the hope that it might be considered a guardian institution, by which a stronger race might assume the care and instruction of the weaker one; and I had hoped that its laws were capable of being so administered as to protect the defenceless. This illusion is destroyed. I see but too clearly now the purpose and object of the law. I cannot, therefore, as a Christian man, remain in the practice of law in a slave state. I therefore relinquish the profession, into which I have just been inducted, and retire forever from the bar of my native state."

"There!--there!--there he goes!" said Frank Russel. "The sticking-point has come at last. His conscience is up, and start him now who can!"

There was a slight motion of surprise in the court and audience. But Judge Clayton sat with unmoved serenity. The words had struck to the depth of his soul. They had struck at the root of one of his strongest hopes in life. But he had listened to them with the same calm and punctilious attention which it was his habit to give to every speaker; and, with unaltered composure, he proceeded to the next business of the court.

A step so unusual occasioned no little excitement. But Clayton was not one of the class of people to whom his associates generally felt at liberty to express their opinions of his conduct. The quiet reserve of his manners discouraged any such freedom. As usual, in cases where a person takes an uncommon course from conscientious motives, Clayton was severely criticised. The more trifling among the audience contented themselves with using the good set phrases, quixotic, absurd, ridiculous. The elder lawyers, and those friendly to Clayton, shook their heads, and said, rash, precipitate, unadvised. "There's a want of ballast about him, somewhere!" said one. "He is unsound!" said another. "Radical and impracticable!" added a third.

"Yes," said Frank Russel, who had just come up, "Clayton is as radical and impracticable as the Sermon on the Mount, and that's the most impracticable thing I know of in literature. We all can serve God and Mammon. We have discovered that happy medium in our day. Clayton is behind the times. He is Jewish in his notions. Don't you think so, Mr. Titmarsh?" addressing the Rev. Mr. Titmarsh.

"It strikes me that our young friend is extremely ultra," said Mr. Titmarsh. "I might feel disposed to sympathize with him in the feelings he expressed, to some extent; but it having pleased the Divine Providence to establish the institution of slavery, I humbly presume it is not competent for human reason to judge of it."

"And if it had pleased the Divine Providence to have established the institution of piracy, you'd say the same thing, I suppose!" said Frank Russel.

"Certainly, my young friend," said Mr. Titmarsh. "Whatever is divinely ordered, becomes right by that fact."

"I should think," said Frank Russel, "that things were divinely ordered because they were right."

"No, my friend," replied Mr. Titmarsh, moderately; "they are right because they are ordered, however contrary they may appear to any of our poor notions of justice and humanity." And Mr. Titmarsh walked off.

"Did you hear that?" said Russel. "And they expect really to come it over us with stuff like that! Now, if a fellow don't go to church Sundays, there's a dreadful outcry against him for not being religious! And, if they get us there, that's the kind of thing they put down our throats! As if they were going to make practical men give in to such humbugs!"

And the Rev. Mr. Titmarsh went off in another direction, lamenting to a friend as follows:--

"How mournfully infidelity is increasing among the young men of our day! They quote Scripture with the same freedom that they would a book of plays, and seem to treat it with no more reverence! I believe it's the want of catechetical instruction while they are children. There's been a great falling back in the teaching of the Assembly's Catechism to children when they are young! I shall get that point up at the General Assembly. If that were thoroughly committed when they are children, I think they would never doubt afterwards."

Clayton went home and told his mother what he had done, and why. His father had not spoken to him on this subject; and there was that about Judge Clayton which made it difficult to introduce a topic, unless he signified an inclination to enter upon it. He was, as usual, calm, grave, and considerate, attending to every duty with unwearying regularity.

At the end of the second day, in the evening, Judge Clayton requested his son to walk in to his study. The interview was painful on both sides.

"You are aware, my son," he said, "that the step you have taken is a very painful one to me. I hope that it was not taken precipitately, from any sudden impulse."

"You may rest assured it was not," said Clayton. "I followed the deepest and most deliberate convictions of my conscience."

"In that case, you could not do otherwise," replied Judge Clayton. "I have no criticisms to make. But will your conscience allow you to retain the position of a slave-holder?"

"I have already relinquished it," replied Clayton, "so far as my own intentions are concerned. I retain the legal relation of owner simply as a means of protecting my servants from the cruelties of the law, and of securing the opportunity to educate and elevate them."

"And suppose this course brings you into conflict with the law of the state?" said Judge Clayton.

"If there is any reasonable prospect of having the law altered, I must endeavor to do that," said Clayton.

"But," said Judge Clayton, "suppose the law is so rooted in the nature of the institution, that it cannot be repealed without uprooting the institution? What then?"

"I say repeal the law, if it do uproot the institution," said Clayton. "Fiat justitia ruat coelum."

"I supposed that would be your answer," said Judge Clayton, patiently. "That is undoubtedly the logical line of life. But you are aware that communities do not follow such lines; your course, therefore, will place you in opposition to the community in which you live. Your conscientious convictions will cross self-interest, and the community will not allow you to carry them out."

"Then," said Clayton, "I must, with myself and my servants, remove to some region where I can do this."

"That I supposed would be the result," said Judge Clayton. "And have you looked at the thing in all its relations and consequences?"

"I have," said Clayton.

"You are about to form a connection with Miss Gordon," said Judge Clayton. "Have you considered how this will affect her?"

"Yes," said Clayton. "Miss Gordon fully sustains me in the course I have taken."

"I have no more to say," said Judge Clayton. "Every man must act up to his sense of duty."

There was a pause of a few moments, and Judge Clayton added:--

"You, perhaps, have seen the implication which your course throws upon us who still continue to practise the system and uphold the institution which you repudiate."

"I meant no implications," said Clayton.

"I presume not. But they result, logically, from your course," said his father. "I assure you, I have often myself pondered the question with reference to my own duties. My course is a sufficient evidence that I have not come to the same result. Human law is, at best, but an approximation, a reflection of many of the ills of our nature. Imperfect as it is, it is, on the whole, a blessing. The worst system is better than anarchy."

"But, my father, why could you not have been a reformer of the system?"

"My son, no reform is possible, unless we are prepared to give up the institution of slavery. That will be the immediate result; and this is so realized by the instinct of self-preservation, which is unfailing in its accuracy, that every such proposition will be ignored, till there is a settled conviction in the community that the institution itself is a moral evil, and a sincere determination felt to be free from it. I see no tendency of things in that direction. That body of religious men of different denominations, called, par excellence, the church, exhibit a degree of moral apathy on this subject which is to me very surprising. It is with them that the training of the community, on which any such reform could be built, must commence; and I see no symptoms of their undertaking it. The decisions and testimonies of the great religious assemblies in the land, in my youth, were frequent. They have grown every year less and less decided; and now the morality of the thing is openly defended in our pulpits, to my great disgust. I see no way but that the institution will be left to work itself out to its final result, which will, in the end, be ruinous to our country. I am not myself gifted with the talents of a reformer. My turn of mind fits me for the situation I hold. I cannot hope that I have done no harm in it; but the good, I hope, will outweigh the evil. If you feel a call to enter on this course, fully understanding the difficulties and sacrifices it would probably involve, I would be the last one to throw the influence of my private wishes and feelings into the scale. We live here but a few years. It is of more consequence that we should do right, than that we should enjoy ourselves."

Judge Clayton spoke this with more emotion than he usually exhibited, and Clayton was much touched.

"My dear father," he said, putting Nina's note into his hand, "you made allusion to Miss Gordon. This note, which I received from her on the morning of your decision, will show you what her spirit is."

Judge Clayton put on his spectacles, and read over the note deliberately, twice. He then handed it formally to his son, and remarked, with his usual brevity,--

"She will do!"

XXXIV. THE CLOUD BURSTS

The shadow of that awful cloud which had desolated other places now began to darken the boundaries of the plantation of Canema. No disease has ever more fully filled out the meaning of those awful words of Scripture, "The pestilence that walketh in darkness." None has been more irregular, and apparently more perfectly capricious, in its movements. During the successive seasons that it has been epidemic in this country, it has seemed to have set at defiance the skill of the physicians. The system of medical tactics which has been wrought out by the painful experience of one season seems to be laughed to scorn by the varying type of the disease in the next. Certain sanitary laws and conditions would seem to be indispensable; yet those who are familiar with it have had fearful experience how like a wolf it will sometimes leap the boundaries of the best and most carefully-guarded fold, and, spite of every caution and protection, sweep all before it.

Its course through towns and villages has been equally singular. Sometimes descending like a cloud on a neighborhood, it will leave a single village or town untouched amidst the surrounding desolations, and long after, when health is restored to the whole neighborhood, come down suddenly on the omitted towns, as a ravaging army sends back a party for prey to some place which has been overlooked or forgotten. Sometimes, entering a house, in twenty-four hours it will take all who are in it. Sometimes it will ravage all the city except some one street or locality, and then come upon that, while all else is spared. Its course, upon southern plantations, was marked by similar capriciousness, and was made still more fatal by that peculiar nature of plantation life which withdraws the inmates so far from medical aid.

When the first letters were received describing the progress of it in northern cities, Aunt Nesbit felt much uneasiness and alarm. It is remarkable with what tenacity people often will cling to life, whose enjoyments in it are so dull and low that a bystander would scarcely think them worth the struggle of preservation. When at length the dreaded news began to be heard from one point and another in their vicinity, Aunt Nesbit said, one day, to Nina,--

"Your cousins, the Gordons, in E., have written to us to leave the plantation, and come and spend some time with them, till the danger is over."

"Why," said Nina, "do they think the cholera can't come there?"

"Well," said Aunt Nesbit, "they have their family under most excellent regulations; and, living in a town so, they are within call of a doctor, if anything happens."

"Aunt," said Nina, "perhaps you had better go; but I will stay with my people."

"Why, don't you feel afraid, Nina?"

"No, aunt, I don't. Besides, I think it would be very selfish for me to live on the services of my people all my life, and then run away and leave them alone when a time of danger comes. The least I can do is to stay and take care of them."

This conversation was overheard by Harry, who was standing with his back to them, on the veranda, near the parlor door where they were sitting.

"Child," said Aunt Nesbit, "what do you suppose you can do? You haven't any experience. Harry and Milly can do a great deal better than you can. I'll leave Milly here. It's our first duty to take care of our health."

"No, aunt, I think there are some duties before that," said Nina. "It's true I haven't a great deal of strength, but I have courage; and I know my going away would discourage our people, and fill them with fear; and that, they say, predisposes to the disease. I shall get the carriage up, and go directly over to see the doctor, and get directions and medicines. I shall talk to our people, and teach them what to do, and see that it is done. And, when they see that I am calm, and not afraid, they will have courage. But, aunt, if you are afraid, I think you had better go. You are feeble; you can't make much exertion; and if you feel any safer or more comfortable, I think it would be best. I should like to have Milly stay, and she, Harry, and I, will be a board of health to the plantation."

"Harry," she said, "if you'll get up the carriage, we'll go immediately."

Again Harry felt the bitterness of his soul sweetened and tranquillized by the noble nature of her to whose hands the law had given the chain which bound him. Galling and intolerable as it would have been otherwise, he felt, when with her, that her service was perfect freedom. He had not said anything to Nina about the contents of the letter which he had received from his sister. He saw that it was an evil which she had no power over, and he shrank from annoying her with it. Nina supposed that his clouded and troubled aspect was caused wholly by the solicitude of responsibility.

In the same carriage which conveyed her to the town sat Aunt Nesbit also, and her cap-boxes, whose importance even the fear of the cholera could not lessen in her eyes. Nina found the physician quite au fait on the subject. He had been reading about miasma and animalculæ, and he entertained Nina nearly half an hour with different theories as to the cause of the disease, and with the experiments which had been made in foreign hospitals.

Among the various theories, there was one which appeared to be his particular pet; and Nina couldn't help thinking, as he stepped about so alertly, that he almost enjoyed the prospect of putting his discoveries to the test. By dint, however, of very practical and positive questions, Nina drew from him all the valuable information which he had to give her; and he wrote her a very full system of directions, and put up a case of medicines for her, assuring her that he should be happy to attend in person if he had time.

On the way home, Nina stopped at Uncle John Gordon's plantation, and there had the first experience of the difference between written directions for a supposed case, and the actual, awful realities of the disease. Her Uncle John had been seized only half an hour before, in the most awful manner. The household was all in terror and confusion, and the shrieks and groans of agony which proceeded from his room were appalling. His wife, busy with the sufferer, did not perceive that the messengers who had been sent in haste for the doctor were wringing their hands in fruitless terror, running up and down the veranda, and doing nothing.

"Harry," said Nina, "take out one of the carriage-horses, and ride quick for your life, and bring the doctor over here in a minute!"

In a few moments the thing was done, and Harry was out of sight. She then walked up to the distracted servants, and commanded them, in a tone of authority, to cease their lamentations. Her resolute manner, and the quiet tone of voice which she preserved, acted as a sedative on their excited nerves. She banished all but two or three of the most reasonable from the house, and then went to the assistance of her aunt.

Before long the doctor arrived. When he had been in the sick room a few moments, he came out to make some inquiries of Nina, and she could not help contrasting the appalled and confounded expression of his countenance with the dapper, consequential air, with which, only two hours before, he had been holding forth to her on animalculæ and miasma.

"The disease," he said, "presented itself in an entirely different aspect from what he had expected. The remedies," he said, "did not work as he anticipated; the case was a peculiar one."

Alas! before the three months were over, poor doctor, you found many peculiar cases!

"Do you think you can save his life?" said Nina.

"Child, only God can save him!" said the physician; "nothing works right."

But why prolong the torture of that scene, or rehearse the struggles, groans, and convulsions? Nina, poor flowery child of seventeen summers, stood with the rest in mute despair. All was tried that could be done or thought of; but the disease, like some blind, deaf destroyer, marched on, turning neither to right nor left, till the cries and groans grew fainter, the convulsed muscles relaxed, and the strong, florid man lay in the last stages of that fearful collapse which in one hour shrivels the most healthy countenance and the firmest muscles to the shrunken and withered image of decrepit old age. When the breath had passed, and all was over, Nina could scarcely believe that that altered face and form, so withered and so worn, could have been her healthy and joyous uncle, and who never had appeared healthier and more joyous than on that morning. But, as a person passing under the foam and spray of Niagara clings with blind confidence to a guide whom he feels, but cannot see, Nina, in this awful hour, felt that she was not alone. The Redeemer, all-powerful over death and the grave, of whom she had been thinking so much of late, seemed to her sensibly near. And it seemed to her as if a voice said to her, continually, "Fear not, for I am with thee. Be not dismayed, for I am thy God."

"How calm you are, my child!" said Aunt Maria to her. "I wouldn't have thought it was in you. I don't know what we should do without you."

But now a frightful wail was heard.

"Oh, we are all dying! we are all going! Oh, missis, come quick! Peter has got it! Oh, daddy has got it! Oh, my child! my child!"

And the doctor, exhausted as he was by the surprise and excitement of this case, began flying from one to another of the cabins, in the greatest haste. Two or three of the house-servants also seemed to be struck in the same moment, and only the calmness and courage which Nina and her aunt maintained prevented a general abandonment to panic. Nina possessed that fine, elastic temperament which, with the appearance of extreme delicacy, possesses great powers of endurance. The perfect calmness which she felt enabled her to bring all her faculties to bear on the emergency.

"My good aunty, you mustn't be afraid! Bring out your religion; trust in God," she said, to the cook, who was wringing her hands in terror. "Remember your religion; sing some of your hymns, and do your duty to the sick."

There is a magic power in the cheerful tone of courage, and Nina succeeded in rallying the well ones to take care of the sick; but now came a messenger, in hot haste, to say that the cholera had broken out on the plantation at home.

"Well, Harry," said Nina, with a face pale, yet unmoved, "our duty calls us away."

And, accompanied by the weary physician, they prepared to go back to Canema. Before they had proceeded far, a man met them on horseback.

"Is Dr. Butler with you?"

"Yes," said Nina, putting her head out of the carriage.

"Oh, doctor, I've been riding all over the country after you. You must come back to town this minute! Judge Peters is dying! I'm afraid he is dead before this time, and there's a dozen more cases right in that street. Here, get on to my horse, and ride for your life."

The doctor hastily sprang from the carriage, and mounted the horse; then, stopping a moment, he cast a look of good-natured pity on the sweet, pale face that was leaning out of the carriage window.

"My poor child," he said, "I can't bear to leave you. Who will help you?"

"God," said Nina; "I am not afraid!"

"Come, come," said the man, "do hurry!" And, with one hasty glance more, he was gone.

"Now, Harry," said Nina, "everything depends upon our keeping up our courage and our strength. We shall have no physician. We must just do the best we can. After all, it is our Lord Jesus that has the keys of death, and he loved us and died for us. He will certainly be with us."

"Oh, Miss Nina, you are an angel!" said Harry, who felt at that moment as if he could have worshipped her.

Arrived at home, Nina found a scene of terror and confusion similar to that she had already witnessed. Old Hundred lay dead in his cabin, and the lamenting crowd, gathering round, were yielding to the full tide of fear and excitement, which predisposed them to the same fate. Nina rode up immediately to the group. She spoke to them calmly; she silenced their outcries, and bade them obey her.

"If you wish, all of you, to die," she said, "this is the way towards it; but, if you'll keep quiet and calm, and do what ought to be done, your lives may be saved. Harry and I have got medicines--we understand what to do. You must follow our directions exactly."

Nina immediately went to the house, and instructed Milly, Aunt Rose, and two or three of the elderly women, in the duties to be done. Milly rose up, in this hour of terror, with all the fortitude inspired by her strong nature.

"Bress de Lord," she said, "for his grace to you, chile! De Lord is a shield. He's been wid us in six troubles, and he'll be wid us in seven. We can sing in de swellings of Jordan."

Harry, meanwhile, was associating to himself a band of the most reliable men on the place, and endeavoring in the same manner to organize them for action. A messenger was dispatched immediately to the neighboring town for unlimited quantities of the most necessary medicines and stimulants. The plantation was districted off, and placed under the care of leaders, who held communication with Harry. In the course of two or three hours, the appalling scene of distress and confusion was reduced to the resolute and orderly condition of a well-managed hospital.

Milly walked the rounds in every direction, appealing to the religious sensibilities of the people, and singing hymns of trust and confidence. She possessed a peculiar voice, suited to her large development of physical frame, almost as deep as a man's bass, with the rich softness of a feminine tone; and Nina could now and then distinguish, as she was moving about the house or grounds, that triumphant tone, singing,--

"God is my sun, And he my shade, To guard my head, By night or noon. Hast thou not given thy word To save my soul from death? And I can trust my Lord, To keep my mortal breath. I'll go and come, Nor fear to die, Till from on high Thou call me home."

The house that night presented the aspect of a beleaguered garrison. Nina and Milly had thrown open all the chambers; and such as were peculiarly exposed to the disease, by delicacy of organization or tremulousness of nervous system, were allowed to take shelter there.

"Now, chile," said Milly, when all the arrangements had been made, "you jes lie down and go to sleep in yer own room. I see how 'tis with you; de spirit is willing, but de flesh is weak. Chile, dere isn't much of you, but dere won't nothing go widout you. So, you take care of yerself first. Never you be 'fraid! De people's quiet now, and de sick ones is ben took care of, and de folks is all doing de best dey can. So, now, you try and get some sleep; 'cause if you goes we shall all go."

Accordingly Nina retired to her room, but before she lay down she wrote to Clayton:--

"We are all in affliction here, my dear friend. Poor Uncle John died this morning of the cholera. I had been to E---- to see a doctor and provide medicines. When I came back I thought I would call a few moments at the house, and I found a perfect scene of horror. Poor uncle died, and there are a great many sick on the place now; and while I was thinking that I would stay and help aunt, a messenger came in all haste, saying that the disease had broken out on our place at home.

"We were bringing the doctor with us in our carriage, when we met a man riding full speed from E----, who told us that Judge Peters was dying, and a great many others were sick on the same street. When we came home we found the poor old coachman dead, and the people in the greatest consternation. It took us some time to tranquillize them and to produce order, but that is now done. Our house is full of the sick and the fearful ones. Milly and Harry are firm and active, and inspire the rest with courage. About twenty are taken with the disease, but not as yet in a violent way. In this awful hour I feel a strange peace, which the Bible truly says 'passeth all understanding.' I see, now, that though the world and all that is in it should perish, 'Christ can give us a beautiful immortal life.' I write to you because, perhaps, this may be the only opportunity. If I die, do not mourn for me, but thank God, who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. But, then, I trust, I shall not die. I hope to live in this world, which is more than ever beautiful to me. Life has never been so valuable and dear as since I have known you. Yet I have such trust in the love of my Redeemer, that, if he were to ask me to lay it down, I could do it almost without a sigh. I would follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth. Perhaps the same dreadful evil is around you,--perhaps at Magnolia Grove. I will not be selfish in calling you here, if Anne needs you more. Perhaps she has not such reliable help as Harry and Milly are to me. So do not fear, and do not leave any duty for me. Our Father loves us, and will do nothing amiss. Milly walks about the entries singing. I love to hear her sing, she sings in such a grand triumphant tone. Hark, I hear her now!

'I'll go and come, Nor fear to die, Till from on high Thou call me home.'

"I shall write you every mail, now, till we are better.

"Living or dying, ever your own

"NINA."

After writing this, Nina lay down and slept--slept all night as quietly as if death and disease were not hanging over her head. In the morning she rose and dressed herself, and Milly, with anxious care, brought to her room some warm coffee and crackers, which she insisted on her taking before she left her apartment.

"How are they all, Milly?" said Nina.

"Well, chile," said Milly, "de midnight cry has been heard among us. Aunt Rose is gone; and Big Sam, and Jack, and Sally, dey's all gone; but de people is all more quiet, love, and dey's determined to stand it out!"

"How is Harry?" said Nina, in a tremulous voice.

"He isn't sick; he has been up all night working over de sick, but he keeps up good heart. De older ones is going to have a little prayer-meeting after breakfast, as a sort of funeral to dem dat's dead; and, perhaps, Miss Nina, you'd read us a chapter."

"Certainly I will," said Nina.

It was yet an early hour, when a large circle of family and plantation hands gathered together in the pleasant, open saloon, which we have so often described. The day was a beautiful one; the leaves and shrubbery round the veranda moist and tremulous with the glittering freshness of morning dew. There was a murmur of tenderness and admiration as Nina, in a white morning-wrapper, and a cheek as white, came into the room.

"Sit down, all my friends," she said, "sit down," looking at some of the plantation men, who seemed to be diffident about taking the sofa, which was behind them; "it's no time for ceremony now. We are standing on the brink of the grave, where all are equal. I'm glad to see you so calm and so brave. I hope your trust is in the Saviour, who gives us the victory over death. Sing," she said. Milly began the well-known hymn:

"And must this feeble body fail, And must it faint and die? My soul shall quit this gloomy vale, And soar to realms on high;

"Shall join the disembodied saints, And find its long-sought rest; That only rest for which it pants, On the Redeemer's breast."

Every voice joined, and the words rose triumphant from the very gates of the grave. When the singing was over, Nina, in a tremulous voice, which grew clearer as she went on, read the undaunted words of the ancient psalm:--

"He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress. My God, in him will I trust. Surely he shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence. He shall cover thee with his feathers. Under his wings shalt thou trust. Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night, nor for the arrow that flieth by day, nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness, nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday. A thousand shall fall by thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee. He shall give his angels charge over thee to keep thee in all thy ways."

"It is possible," said Nina, "that we may, some of us, be called away. But, to those that love Christ, there is no fear in death. It is only going home to our Father. Keep up courage, then!"

In all cases like this, the first shock brings with it more terror than any which succeeds. The mind can become familiar with anything, even with the prospect of danger and death, so that it can appear to be an ordinary condition of existence. Everything proceeded calmly on the plantation; and all, stimulated by the example of their young mistress, seemed determined to meet the exigency firmly and faithfully. In the afternoon of the second day, as Nina was sitting in the door, she observed the wagon of Uncle Tiff making its way up the avenue; and, with her usual impulsiveness, ran down to meet her humble friend.

"Oh, Tiff, how do you do, in these dreadful times!"

"Oh, Miss Nina," said the faithful creature, removing his hat, with habitual politeness, "ef yer please, I's brought de baby here, 'cause it's drefful sick, and I's been doing all I could for him, and he don't get no better. And I's brought Miss Fanny and Teddy, 'cause I's 'fraid to leave 'em, 'cause I see a man yesterday, and he tell me dey was dying eberywhar on all de places round."

"Well," said Nina, "you have come to a sorrowful place, for they are dying here, too! But, if you feel any safer here, you and the children may stay, and we'll do for you just as we do for each other. Give me the baby, while you get out. It's asleep, isn't it?"

"Yes, Miss Nina, it's 'sleep pretty much all de time, now."

Nina carried it up the steps, and put it into the arms of Milly.

"It's sleeping nicely," she said.

"Ah, honey!" said Milly, "it'll neber wake up out of dat ar! Dat ar sleep an't de good kind!"

"Well," said Nina, "we'll help him take care of it, and we'll make room for him and the children, Milly; because we have medicines and directions, and they have nothing out there."

So Tiff and his family took shelter in the general fortress. Towards evening, the baby died. Tiff held it in his arms to the very last; and it was with difficulty that Nina and Milly could persuade him that the little flickering breath was gone forever. When forced to admit it, he seemed for a few moments perfectly inconsolable. Nina quietly opened her Testament, and read to him:--

"And they brought little children unto him, that he should touch them; and his disciples rebuked those that brought them. But Jesus said, Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven."

"Bressed Lord!" said Tiff, "I'll gib him up, I will! I won't hold out no longer! I won't forbid him to go, if it does break my old heart! Laws, we's drefful selfish! But de por little ting, he was getting so pretty!"

XXXV. THE VOICE IN THE WILDERNESS

Clayton was quietly sitting in his law-office, looking over and arranging some papers necessary to closing his business. A colored boy brought in letters from the mail. He looked them over rapidly; and, selecting one, read it with great agitation and impatience. Immediately he started, with the open letter crushed in his hand, seized his hat, and rushed to the nearest livery-stable.

"Give me the fastest horse you have--one that can travel night and day!" he said. "I must ride for life or death!"

And half an hour more saw Clayton in full speed on the road. By the slow, uncertain, and ill-managed mail-route, it would have taken three days to reach Canema. Clayton hoped, by straining every nerve, to reach there in twenty-four hours. He pushed forward, keeping the animal at the top of his speed; and, at the first stage-stand, changed him for a fresh one. And thus proceeding along, he found himself, at three o'clock of the next morning, in the woods about fifteen miles from Canema. The strong tension of the nervous system, which had upheld him insensible to fatigue until this point, was beginning slightly to subside. All night he had ridden through the loneliness of pine-forests, with no eye looking down on him save the twinkling mysterious stars. At the last place where he had sought to obtain horses, everything had been horror and confusion. Three were lying dead in the house, and another was dying.

All along upon the route, at every stopping-place, the air had seemed to be filled with flying rumors and exaggerated reports of fear and death. As soon as he began to perceive that he was approaching the plantation, he became sensible of that shuddering dread which all of us may remember to have had, in slight degrees, in returning home after a long absence, under a vague expectation of misfortune, to which the mind can set no definite limits. When it was yet scarcely light enough to see, he passed by the cottage of Old Tiff. A strange impulse prompted him to stop and make some inquiries there, before he pushed on to the plantation. But, as he rode up, he saw the gate standing ajar, the door of the house left open; and, after repeated callings, receiving no answer, he alighted, and, leading his horse behind him, looked into the door. The gloaming starlight was just sufficient to show him that all was desolate. Somehow this seemed to him like an evil omen. As he was mounting his horse, preparing to ride away, a grand and powerful voice rose from the obscurity of the woods before him, singing, in a majestic, minor-keyed tune, these words:--

"Throned on a cloud our God shall come, Bright flames prepare his way; Thunder and darkness, fire and storm, Lead on the dreadful day!"

Wearied with his night ride, his nervous system strained to the last point of tension by the fearful images which filled his mind, it is not surprising that these sounds should have thrilled through the hearer with even a superstitious power. And Clayton felt a singular excitement, as, under the dim arcade of the pine-trees, he saw a dark figure approaching. He seemed to be marching with a regular tread, keeping time to the mournful music which he sung.

"Who are you?" called Clayton, making an effort to recall his manhood.

"I?" replied the figure, "I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness! I am a sign unto this people of the judgment of the Lord!"

Our readers must remember the strange dimness of the hour, the wildness of the place and circumstances, and the singular quality of the tone in which the figure spoke. Clayton hesitated a moment, and the speaker went on:--

"I saw the Lord coming with ten thousand of his saints! Before him went the pestilence, and burning coals went forth at his feet! Thy bow is made quite naked, O God, according to the oaths of the tribes! I saw the tents of Cushan in affliction, and the curtains of the land of Midian did tremble!"

Pondering in his mind what this wild style of address might mean, Clayton rode slowly onward. And the man, for such he appeared to be, came out of the shadows of the wood and stood directly in his path, raising his hand with a commanding gesture.

"I know whom you seek," he said; "but it shall not be given you; for the star, which is called wormwood, hath fallen, and the time of the dead is come, that they shall be judged! Behold, there sitteth on the white cloud one like the Son of Man, having on his head a golden crown, and in his hand a sharp sickle!"

Then, waving his hand above his head, with a gesture of wild excitement, he shouted:--

"Thrust in thy sharp sickle, and gather the clusters of the vine of the earth, for her grapes are fully ripe! Behold, the wine-press shall be trodden without the city, and there shall be blood even to the horses' bridles! Woe, woe, woe to the inhabitants of the earth, because of the trumpets of the other angels, which are yet to sound!"

The fearful words pealed through the dim aisles of the forest like the curse of some destroying angel. After a pause, the speaker resumed, in a lower and more plaintive tone:--

"Weep ye not for the dead! neither bewail her! Behold, the Lamb standeth on Mount Zion, and with him a hundred and forty and four thousand, having his Father's name written on their foreheads. These are they which follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth; and in their mouth is found no guile, for they are without fault before the throne of God. Behold the angel having the seal of God is gone forth, and she shall be sealed in her forehead unto the Lamb."

The figure turned away slowly, singing, as he made his way through the forest, in the same weird and funereal accents; but this time the song was a wild, plaintive sound, like the tolling of a heavy bell:--

"Ding dong! dead and gone! Farewell, father! Bury me in Egypt's land, By my dear mother! Ding, dong! ding, dong! Dead and gone!"

Clayton, as he slowly wound his way along the unfrequented path, felt a dim, brooding sense of mystery and terror creeping over him. The tones of the voice, and the wild style of the speaker, recalled the strange incident of the camp-meeting; and, though he endeavored strenuously to reason with himself that probably some wild and excited fanatic, made still more frantic by the presence of death and destruction all around, was the author of these fearful denunciations, still he could not help a certain weight of fearful foreboding.

This life may be truly called a haunted house, built as it is on the very confines of the land of darkness and the shadow of death. A thousand living fibres connect us with the unknown and unseen state; and the strongest hearts, which never stand still for any mortal terror, have sometimes hushed their very beating at a breath of a whisper from within the veil. Perhaps the most resolute unbeliever in spiritual things has hours of which he would be ashamed to tell, when he, too, yields to the powers of those awful affinities which bind us to that unknown realm.

It is not surprising that Clayton, in spite of himself, should have felt like one mysteriously warned. It was a relief to him when the dusky dimness of the solemn dawn was pierced by long shafts of light from the rising sun, and the day broke gladsome and jubilant, as if sorrow, sighing, and death, were a dream of the night. During the whole prevalence of this fearful curse, it was strange to witness the unaltered regularity, splendor, and beauty, with which the movements of the natural world went on. Amid fears, and dying groans, and wailings, and sobs, and broken hearts, the sun rose and set in splendor, the dews twinkled, and twilight folded her purple veil heavy with stars; birds sung, waters danced and warbled, flowers bloomed, and everything in nature was abundant, and festive, and joyous.

When Clayton entered the boundaries of the plantation, he inquired eagerly of the first person he met for the health of its mistress.

"Thank God, she is yet alive!" said he. "It was but a dream, after all!"

XXXVI. THE EVENING STAR

The mails in the State of North Carolina, like the prudential arrangements of the slave states generally, were very little to be depended upon; and therefore a week had elapsed after the mailing of Nina's first letter, describing the danger of her condition, before it was received by Clayton. During that time the fury of the shock which had struck the plantation appeared to have abated; and, while on some estates in the vicinity it was yet on the increase, the inhabitants of Canema began to hope that the awful cloud was departing from them. It was true that many were still ailing; but there were no new cases, and the disease in the case of those who were ill appeared to be yielding to nursing and remedies.

Nina had risen in the morning early, as her custom had been since the sickness, and gone the rounds, to inquire for the health of her people. Returned, a little fatigued, she was sitting in the veranda, under the shadow of one of the pillar-roses, enjoying the cool freshness of the morning. Suddenly the tramp of horse's feet was heard, and, looking, she saw Clayton coming up the avenue. There seemed but a dizzy, confused moment, before his horse's bridle was thrown to the winds, and he was up the steps, holding her in his arms.

"Oh, you are here yet, my rose, my bride, my lamb! God is merciful! This is too much! Oh, I thought you were gone!"

"No, dear, not yet," said Nina. "God has been with us. We have lost a great many; but God has spared me to you."

"Are you really well?" said Clayton, holding her off, and looking at her. "You look pale, my little rose!"

"That's not wonderful," said Nina; "I've had a great deal to make me look pale; but I am very well. I have been well through it all--never in better health--and, it seems strange to say it, but never happier. I have felt so peaceful, so sure of God's love!"

"Do you know," said Clayton, "that that peace alarms me--that strange, unearthly happiness? It seems so like what is given to dying people."

"No," said Nina, "I think that when we have no one but our Father to lean on, he comes nearer than he does any other time; and that is the secret of this happiness. But, come,--you look wofully tired; have you been riding all night?"

"Yes, ever since yesterday morning at nine o'clock. I have ridden down four horses to get to you. Only think, I didn't get your letter till a week after it was dated!"

"Well, perhaps that was the best," said Nina; "because I have heard them say that anybody coming suddenly and unprepared in the epidemic, when it is in full force, is almost sure to be taken by it immediately. But you must let me take care of you. Don't you know that I'm mistress of the fortress here--commander-in-chief and head-physician? I shall order you to your room immediately, and Milly shall bring you up some coffee, and then you must have some sleep. You can see with your eyes, now, that we are all safe, and there's nothing to hinder your resting. Come, let me lead you off, like a captive."

Released from the pressure of overwhelming fear, Clayton began now to feel the reaction of the bodily and mental straining which he had been enduring for the last twenty-four hours, and therefore he willingly yielded himself to the directions of his little sovereign. Retired to his room, after taking his coffee, which was served by Milly, he fell into a deep and tranquil sleep, which lasted till some time in the afternoon. At first, overcome by fatigue, he slept without dreaming; but, when the first weariness was past, the excitement of the nervous system, under which he had been laboring, began to color his dreams with vague and tumultuous images. He thought that he was again with Nina at Magnolia Grove, and that the servants were passing around in procession, throwing flowers at their feet; but the wreath of orange-blossoms which fell in Nina's lap was tied with black crape. But she took it up, laughing, threw the crape away, and put the wreath on her head, and he heard the chorus singing,--

"Oh, de North Carolina rose! Oh, de North Carolina rose!"

And then the sound seemed to change to one of lamentation, and the floral procession seemed to be a funeral, and a deep, melancholy voice, like the one he had heard in the woods in the morning, sang,--

"Weep, for the rose is withered! The North Carolina rose!"

He struggled heavily in his sleep, and, at last waking, sat up and looked about him. The rays of the evening sun were shining on the tree-tops of the distant avenue, and Nina was singing on the veranda below. He listened, and the sound floated up like a rose-leaf carried on a breeze:--

"The summer hath its heavy cloud, The rose-leaf must fall, But in our land joy wears no shroud-- Never doth it pall! Each new morning ray Leaves no sigh for yesterday-- No smile passed away Would we recall!"

The time was a favorite melody, which has found much favor with the popular ear, and bore the title of "The Hindoo Dancing-Girl's Song;" and is, perhaps, a fragment of one of those mystical songs in which oriental literature abounds, in which the joy and reunion of earthly love are told in shadowy, symbolic resemblance to the everlasting union of the blessed above. It had a wild, dreamy, soothing power, as verse after verse came floating in, like white doves from paradise, as if they had borne healing on their wings:--

"Then haste to the happy land, Where sorrow is unknown; But first in a joyous band, I'll make thee my own. Haste, haste, fly with me Where love's banquet waits for thee; Thine all its sweets shall be,-- Thine, thine, alone!"

A low tap at his door at last aroused him. The door was partly opened, and a little hand threw in a half-opened spray of monthly-rosebuds.

"There's something to remind you that you are yet in the body!" said a voice in the entry. "If you are rested, I'll let you come down, now."

And Clayton heard the light footsteps tripping down the stairs. He roused himself, and, after some little attention to his toilet, appeared on the veranda.

"Tea has been waiting for some time," said Nina. "I thought I'd give you a hint."

"I was lying very happy, hearing you sing," said Clayton. "You may sing me that song again."

"Was I singing?" said Nina; "why I didn't know it! I believe that's my way of thinking, sometimes. I'll sing to you again, after tea. I like to sing."

After tea they were sitting again in the veranda, and the whole heavens were one rosy flush of filmy clouds.

"How beautiful!" said Nina. "It seems to me I've enjoyed these things, this summer, as I never have before. It seemed as if I felt an influence from them going through me, and filling me, as the light does those clouds."

And, as she stood looking up into the sky, she began singing again the words that Clayton had heard before:--

"I am come from the happy land, Where sorrow is unknown; I have parted a joyous band, To make thee mine own! Haste, haste, fly with me, Where love's banquet waits for thee; Thine all its sweets shall be,-- Thine, thine, alone!

"The summer has its heavy cloud, The rose-leaf must fall,"--

She stopped her singing suddenly, left the veranda, and went into the house.

"Do you want anything?" said Clayton.

"Nothing," said she, hurriedly. "I'll be back in a moment."

Clayton watched, and saw her go to a closet in which the medicines and cordials were kept, and take something from a glass. He gave a start of alarm.

"You are not ill, are you?" he said, fearfully, as she returned.

"Oh, no; only a little faint. We have become so prudent, you know, that if we feel the least beginning of any disagreeable sensation, we take something at once. I have felt this faintness quite often. It isn't much."

Clayton put his arm around her, and looked at her with a vague yearning of fear and admiration.

"You look so like a spirit," he said, "that I must hold you."

"Do you think I've got a pair of hidden wings?" she said, smiling, and looking gayly in his face.

"I am afraid so!" he said. "Do you feel quite well, now?"

"Yes, I believe so. Only, perhaps, we had better sit down. I think, perhaps, it is the reaction of so much excitement makes me feel rather tired."

Clayton seated her on the settee by the door, still keeping his arm anxiously around her. In a few moments she drooped her head wearily on his shoulder.

"You are ill!" he said, in tones of alarm.

"No, no! I feel very well--only a little faint and tired. It seems to me it is getting a little cold here, isn't it?" she said, with a slight shiver.

Clayton took her up in his arms, without speaking, carried her in and laid her on the sofa, then rang for Harry and Milly.

"Get a horse, instantly," he said to Harry, as soon as he appeared, "and go for a doctor!"

"There's no use in sending," said Nina; "he is driven to death, and can't come. Besides, there's nothing the matter with me, only I am a little tired and cold. Shut the doors and windows, and cover me up. No, no, don't take me up stairs! I like to lie here; just put a shawl over me, that's all. I am thirsty,--give me some water!"

The fearful and mysterious disease, which was then in the ascendant, has many forms of approach and development. One, and the most deadly, is that which takes place when a person has so long and gradually imbibed the fatal poison of an infected atmosphere, that the resisting powers of nature have been insidiously and quietly subdued, so that the subject sinks under it, without any violent outward symptom, by a quiet and certain yielding of the vital powers, such as has been likened to the bleeding to death by an internal wound. In this case, before an hour had passed, though none of the violent and distressing symptoms of the disease appeared, it became evident that the seal of death was set on that fair young brow. A messenger had been dispatched, riding with the desperate speed which love and fear can give, but Harry remained in attendance.

"Nothing is the matter with me--nothing is the matter," she said, "except fatigue, and this change in the weather. If I only had more over me! and, perhaps, you had better give me a little brandy, or some such thing. This is water, isn't it, that you have been giving me?"

Alas! it was the strongest brandy; but there was no taste, and the hartshorn that they were holding had no smell. And there was no change in the weather; it was only the creeping deadness, affecting the whole outer and inner membrane of the system. Yet still her voice remained clear, though her mind occasionally wandered.

There is a strange impulse, which sometimes comes in the restlessness and distress of dissolving nature, to sing; and, as she lay with her eyes closed, apparently in a sort of trance, she would sing, over and over again, the verse of the song which she was singing when the blow of the unseen destroyer first struck her.

"The summer hath its heavy cloud, The rose-leaf must fall; But in our land joy wears no shroud, Never doth it pall."

At last she opened her eyes, and, seeing the agony of all around, the truth seemed to come to her.

"I think I'm called!" she said. "Oh, I'm so sorry for you all! Don't grieve so; my Father loves me so well,--he cannot spare me any longer. He wants me to come to him. That's all--don't grieve so. It's home I'm going to--home! 'Twill be only a little while, and you'll come too, all of you. You are satisfied, are you not, Edward?"

And again she relapsed into the dreamy trance, and sang, in that strange, sweet voice, so low, so weak,--

"In our land joy wears no shroud, Never doth it pall."

Clayton,--what did he? What could he do? What have any of us done, who have sat holding in our arms a dear form, from which the soul was passing--the soul for which gladly we would have given our own in exchange! When we have felt it going with inconceivable rapidity from us; and we, ignorant and blind, vainly striving, with this and that, to arrest the inevitable doom, feeling every moment that some other thing might be done to save, which is not done, and that that which we are doing may be only hastening the course of the destroyer! Oh, those awful, agonized moments, when we watch the clock, and no physician comes, and every stroke of the pendulum is like the approaching step of death! Oh, is there anything in heaven or earth for the despair of such hours?

Not a moment was lost by the three around that dying bed, chafing those cold limbs, administering the stimulants which the dead, exhausted system no longer felt.

"She doesn't suffer! Thank God, at any rate, for that!" said Clayton, as he knelt over her in anguish.

A beautiful smile passed over her face, as she opened her eyes and looked on them all, and said,--

"No, my poor friends, I don't suffer. I'm come to the land where they never suffer. I'm only so sorry for you! Edward," she said to him, "do you remember what you said to me once?--It has come now. You must bear it like a man. God calls you to some work--don't shrink from it. You are baptized with fire. It all lasts only a little while. It will be over soon, very soon! Edward, take care of my poor people. Tell Tom to be kind to them. My poor, faithful, good Harry! Oh! I'm going so fast!"

The voice sunk into a whispering sigh. Life now seemed to have retreated to the citadel of the brain. She lay apparently in the last sleep, when the footsteps of the doctor were heard on the veranda. There was a general spring to the door, and Dr. Butler entered, pale, haggard, and worn, from constant exertion and loss of rest.

He did not say in words that there was no hope, but his first dejected look said it but too plainly.

She moved her head a little, like one who is asleep uneasily upon her pillow, opened her eyes once more, and said,--

"Good by! I will arise and go to my Father!"

The gentle breath gradually became fainter and fainter,--all hope was over! The night walked on with silent and solemn footsteps--soft showers fell without, murmuring upon the leaves--within, all was still as death!

"They watched her breathing through the night, Her breathing soft and low, As in her breast the wave of life Kept heaving to and fro.

"So silently they seemed to speak, So slowly moved about, As they had lent her half their powers To eke her living out.

"Their very hopes belied their fears, Their fears their hopes belied-- They thought her dying when she slept, And sleeping when she died.

"For when the morn came dim and sad, And chill with early showers, Her quiet eyelids closed--she had Another morn than ours."

XXXVII. THE TIE BREAKS

Clayton remained at Canema several days after the funeral. He had been much affected by the last charge given him by Nina, that he should care for her people; and the scene of distress which he witnessed among them, at her death, added to the strength of his desire to be of service to them.

He spent some time in looking over and arranging Nina's papers. He sealed up the letters of her different friends, and directed them in order to be returned to the writers, causing Harry to add to each a memorandum of the time of her death. His heart sunk heavily when he reflected how little it was possible for any one to do for servants left in the uncontrolled power of a man like Tom Gordon. The awful words of his father's decision, with regard to the power of the master, never seemed so dreadful as now, when he was to see this unlimited authority passed into the hands of one whose passions were his only law. He recalled, too, what Nina had said of the special bitterness existing between Tom and Harry; and his heart almost failed him when he recollected that the very step which Nina, in her generosity, had taken to save Lisette from his lawlessness, had been the means of placing her, without remedy, under his power. Under the circumstances, he could not but admire the calmness and firmness with which Harry still continued to discharge his duties to the estate; visiting those who were still ailing, and doing his best to prevent their sinking into a panic which might predispose to another attack of disease. Recollecting that Nina had said something of some kind of a contract, by which Harry's freedom was to be secured in case of her death, he resolved to speak with him on the subject. As they were together in the library, looking over the papers, Clayton said to him:--

"Harry, is there not some kind of contract, or understanding, with the guardians of the estate, by which your liberty was secured in case of the death of your mistress?"

"Yes," said Harry, "there is such a paper. I was to have my freedom on paying a certain sum which is all paid in to five hundred dollars."

"I will advance you that money," said Clayton, unhesitatingly, "if that is all that is necessary. Let me see the paper."

Harry produced it, and Clayton looked it over. It was a regular contract, drawn in proper form, and with no circumstance wanting to give it validity. Clayton, however, knew enough of the law which regulates the condition in which Harry stood, to know that it was of no more avail in his case than so much blank paper. He did not like to speak of it, but sat reading it over, weighing every word, and dreading the moment when he should be called upon to make some remark concerning it; knowing, as he did, that what he had to say must dash all Harry's hopes,--the hopes of his whole life. While he was hesitating a servant entered and announced Mr. Jekyl; and that gentleman, with a business-like directness which usually characterized his movements, entered the library immediately after.

"Good-morning, Mr. Clayton," he said, and then, nodding patronizingly to Harry, he helped himself to a chair and stated his business, without further preamble.

"I have received orders from Mr. Gordon to come and take possession of the estate and chattels of his deceased sister without delay."

As Clayton sat perfectly silent, it seemed to occur to Mr. Jekyl that a few moral reflections of a general nature would be in etiquette on the present occasion. He therefore added, in the tone of voice which he reserved particularly for that style of remark:--

"We have been called upon to pass through most solemn and afflicting dispensations of Divine Providence, lately. Mr. Clayton these things remind us of the shortness of life, and of the necessity of preparation for death!"

Mr. Jekyl paused, and, as Clayton still sat silent, he went on:

"There was no will, I presume?"

"No," said Clayton, "there was not."

"Ah, so I supposed," said Mr. Jekyl, who had now recovered his worldly tone. "In that case, of course the whole property reverts to the heir-at-law, just as I had imagined."

"Perhaps Mr. Jekyl would look at this paper," said Harry, taking his contract from the hand of Mr. Clayton, and passing it to Mr. Jekyl; who took out his spectacles, placed them deliberately on his sharp nose, and read the paper through.

"Were you under the impression," said he to Harry, "that this is a legal document?"

"Certainly," said Harry. "I can bring witnesses to prove Mr. John Gordon's signature, and Miss Nina's also."

"Oh, that's all evident enough," said Mr. Jekyl. "I know Mr. John Gordon's signature. But all the signatures in the world couldn't make it a valid contract. You see, my boy," he said, turning to Harry, "a slave, not being a person in the eye of the law, cannot have a contract made with him. The law, which is based on the old Roman code, holds him, pro nullis, pro mortuis; which means, Harry, that he's held as nothing--as dead, inert substance. That's his position in law."

"I believe," said Harry in a strong and bitter tone, "that is what religious people call a Christian institution!"

"Hey?" said Mr. Jekyl, elevating his eyebrows, "what's that?"

Harry repeated his remark, and Mr. Jekyl replied in the most literal manner:--

"Of course it is. It is a divine ordering, and ought to be met in a proper spirit. There's no use, my boy, in rebellion. Hath not the potter power over the clay, to make one lump to honor, and the other to dishonor?"

"Mr. Jekyl, I think it would be expedient to confine the conversation simply to legal matters," said Clayton.

"Oh, certainly," said Mr. Jekyl. "And this brings me to say that I have orders from Mr. Gordon to stay till he comes, and keep order on the place. Also that none of the hands shall, at any time, leave the plantation until he arrives. I brought two or three officers with me, in case there should be any necessity for enforcing order."

"When will Mr. Gordon be here?" said Clayton.

"To-morrow, I believe," said Mr. Jekyl. "Young man," he added, turning to Harry, "you can produce the papers and books, and I can be attending to the accounts."

Clayton rose and left the room, leaving Harry with the imperturbable Mr. Jekyl, who plunged briskly into the business of the accounts, talking to Harry with as much freedom and composure as if he had not just been destroying the hopes of his whole lifetime.

If, by any kind of inward clairvoyance, or sudden clearing of his mental vision, Mr. Jekyl could have been made to appreciate the anguish which at that moment overwhelmed the soul of the man with whom he was dealing, we deem it quite possible that he might have been moved to a transient emotion of pity. Even a thorough-paced political economist may sometimes be surprised in this way, by the near view of a case of actual irremediable distress; but he would soon have consoled himself by a species of mental algebra, that the greatest good of the greatest number was nevertheless secure; therefore there was no occasion to be troubled about infinitesimal amounts of suffering. In this way people can reason away every kind of distress but their own; for it is very remarkable that even so slight an ailment as a moderate toothache will put this kind of philosophy entirely to rout.

"It appears to me," said Mr. Jekyl, looking at Harry, after a while, with more attention than he had yet given him, "that something is the matter with you, this morning. Aren't you well?"

"In body," said Harry, "I am well."

"Well, what is the matter, then?" said Mr. Jekyl.

"The matter is," said Harry, "that I have all my life been toiling for my liberty, and thought I was coming nearer to it every year; and now, at thirty-five years of age, I find myself still a slave, with no hope of getting free!"

Mr. Jekyl perceived from the outside that there was something the matter inside of his human brother; some unknown quantity in the way of suffering, such as his algebra gave no rule for ascertaining. He had a confused notion that this was an affliction, and that when people were in affliction they must be talked to; and he proceeded accordingly to talk.

"My boy, this is a dispensation of Divine Providence!"

"I call it a dispensation of human tyranny!" said Harry.

"It pleased the Lord," continued Mr. Jekyl, "to foredoom the race of Ham"--

"Mr. Jekyl, that humbug don't go down with me! I'm no more of the race of Ham than you are! I'm Colonel Gordon's oldest son--as white as my brother, who you say owns me! Look at my eyes, and my hair, and say if any of the rules about Ham pertain to me!"

"Well," said Mr. Jekyl, "my boy, you mustn't get excited. Everything must go, you know, by general rules. We must take that course which secures the greatest general amount of good on the whole; and all such rules will work hard in particular cases. Slavery is a great missionary enterprise for civilizing and christianizing the degraded African."

"Wait till you see Tom Gordon's management on this plantation," said Harry, "and you'll see what sort of a christianizing institution it is! Mr. Jekyl, you know better! You throw such talk as that in the face of your northern visitors, and you know all the while that Sodom and Gomorrah don't equal some of these plantations, where nobody isn't anybody's husband or wife in particular! You know all these things, and you dare talk to me about a missionary institution! What sort of missionary institutions are the great trading-marts, where they sell men and women? What are the means of grace they use there? And the dogs and the negro-hunters!--those are for the greatest good, too! If your soul were in our souls' stead, you'd see things differently."

Mr. Jekyl was astonished, and said so. But he found a difficulty in presenting his favorite view of the case, under the circumstances; and we believe those ministers of the Gospel, and elders, who entertain similar doctrines, would gain some new views by the effort to present them to a live man in Harry's circumstances. Mr. Jekyl never had a more realizing sense of the difference between the abstract and concrete.

Harry was now thoroughly roused. He had inherited the violent and fiery passions of his father. His usual appearance of studied calmness, and his habits of deferential address, were superinduced; they resembled the thin crust which coats over a flood of boiling lava, and which a burst of the seething mass beneath can shiver in a moment. He was now wholly desperate and reckless. He saw himself already delivered, bound hand and foot, into the hands of a master from whom he could expect neither mercy nor justice. He was like one who had hung suspended over an abyss, by grasping a wild rose; the frail and beautiful thing was broken, and he felt himself going, with only despair beneath him. He rose and stood the other side of the table, his hands trembling with excitement.

"Mr. Jekyl," he said, "it is all over with me! Twenty years of faithful service have gone for nothing. Myself and wife, and unborn child, are the slaves of a vile wretch! Hush, now! I will have my say for once! I've borne, and borne, and borne, and it shall come out! You men who call yourselves religious, and stand up for such tyranny,--you serpents, you generation of vipers,--how can you escape the damnation of hell? You keep the clothes of them who stone Stephen! You encourage theft, and robbery, and adultery, and you know it! You are worse than the villains themselves, who don't pretend to justify what they do. Now, go, tell Tom Gordon--go! I shall fight it out to the last! I've nothing to hope, and nothing to lose. Let him look out! They made sport of Samson,--they put out his eyes,--but he pulled down the temple over their heads, after all. Look out!"

There is something awful in an outburst of violent passion. The veins in Harry's forehead were swollen, his lips were livid, his eyes glittered like lightning; and Mr. Jekyl cowered before him.

"There will come a day," said Harry, "when all this shall be visited upon you! The measure you have filled to us shall be filled to you double--mark my words!"

Harry spoke so loudly, in his vehemence, that Clayton overheard him, and came behind him silently into the room. He was pained, shocked, and astonished; and, obeying the first instinct, he came forward and laid his hand entreatingly on Harry's shoulder.

"My good fellow, you don't know what you are saying," he said.

"Yes, I do," said Harry, "and my words will be true!"

Another witness had come behind Clayton--Tom Gordon, in his travelling-dress, with pistols at his belt. He had ridden over after Jekyl, and had arrived in time to hear part of Harry's frantic ravings.

"Stop!" he said, stepping into the middle of the room; "leave that fellow to me! Now, boy," he said, fixing his dark and evil eye upon Harry, "you didn't know that your master was hearing you, did you? The last time we met, you told me I wasn't your master! Now, we'll see if you'll say that again! You went whimpering to your mistress, and got her to buy Lisette, so as to keep her out of my way! Now who owns her?--say! Do you see this?" he said, holding up a long, lithe gutta-percha cane. "This is what I whip dogs with, when they don't know their place! Now, sir, down on your knees, and ask pardon for your impudence, or I'll thrash you within an inch of your life!"

"I won't kneel to my younger brother!" said Harry.

With a tremendous oath, Tom struck him; and, as if a rebound from the stroke, Harry struck back a blow so violent as to send him stumbling across the room, against the opposite wall; then turned, quick as thought, sprang through the open window, climbed down the veranda, vaulted on to Tom's horse, which stood tied at the post, and fled as rapidly as lightning to his cottage door, where Lisette stood at the ironing-table. He reached out his hand, and said, "Up, quick, Lisette! Tom Gordon's here!" And before Tom Gordon had fairly recovered from the dizziness into which the blow had thrown him, the fleet blood-horse was whirling Harry and Lisette past bush and tree, till they arrived at the place where he had twice before met Dred.

Dred was standing there. "Even so," he said, as the horse stopped, and Harry and Lisette descended; "the vision is fulfilled! Behold, the Lord shall make thee a witness and commander to the people!"

"There's no time to be lost," said Harry.

"Well I know that," said Dred. "Come, follow me!"

And before sunset of that evening Harry and Lisette were tenants of the wild fastness in the centre of the swamp.