Our friend Tom, in his own simple musings, often compared his morefortunate lot, in the bondage into which he was cast, with that ofJoseph in Egypt; and, in fact, as time went on, and he developed moreand more under the eye of his master, the strength of the parallelincreased.

St. Clare was indolent and careless of money. Hitherto the providing andmarketing had been principally done by Adolph, who was, to the full, ascareless and extravagant as his master; and, between them both, they hadcarried on the dispersing process with great alacrity. Accustomed, formany years, to regard his master's property as his own care, Tom saw,with an uneasiness he could scarcely repress, the wasteful expenditureof the establishment; and, in the quiet, indirect way which his classoften acquire, would sometimes make his own suggestions.

St. Clare at first employed him occasionally; but, struck with hissoundness of mind and good business capacity, he confided in him moreand more, till gradually all the marketing and providing for the familywere intrusted to him.

"No, no, Adolph," he said, one day, as Adolph was deprecating thepassing of power out of his hands; "let Tom alone. You only understandwhat you want; Tom understands cost and come to; and there may be someend to money, bye and bye if we don't let somebody do that."

Trusted to an unlimited extent by a careless master, who handed him abill without looking at it, and pocketed the change without counting it,Tom had every facility and temptation to dishonesty; and nothing but animpregnable simplicity of nature, strengthened by Christian faith, couldhave kept him from it. But, to that nature, the very unbounded trustreposed in him was bond and seal for the most scrupulous accuracy.

With Adolph the case had been different. Thoughtless and self-indulgent,and unrestrained by a master who found it easier to indulge than toregulate, he had fallen into an absolute confusion as to _meum tuum_with regard to himself and his master, which sometimes troubled evenSt. Clare. His own good sense taught him that such a training of hisservants was unjust and dangerous. A sort of chronic remorse went withhim everywhere, although not strong enough to make any decided changein his course; and this very remorse reacted again into indulgence. Hepassed lightly over the most serious faults, because he told himselfthat, if he had done his part, his dependents had not fallen into them.

Tom regarded his gay, airy, handsome young master with an odd mixtureof fealty, reverence, and fatherly solicitude. That he never read theBible; never went to church; that he jested and made free with any andevery thing that came in the way of his wit; that he spent his Sundayevenings at the opera or theatre; that he went to wine parties, andclubs, and suppers, oftener than was at all expedient,--were all thingsthat Tom could see as plainly as anybody, and on which he based aconviction that "Mas'r wasn't a Christian;"--a conviction, however,which he would have been very slow to express to any one else, but onwhich he founded many prayers, in his own simple fashion, when he wasby himself in his little dormitory. Not that Tom had not his own wayof speaking his mind occasionally, with something of the tact oftenobservable in his class; as, for example, the very day after the Sabbathwe have described, St. Clare was invited out to a convivial party ofchoice spirits, and was helped home, between one and two o'clock atnight, in a condition when the physical had decidedly attained the upperhand of the intellectual. Tom and Adolph assisted to get him composedfor the night, the latter in high spirits, evidently regarding thematter as a good joke, and laughing heartily at the rusticity of Tom'shorror, who really was simple enough to lie awake most of the rest ofthe night, praying for his young master.

"Well, Tom, what are you waiting for?" said St. Clare, the next day, ashe sat in his library, in dressing-gown and slippers. St. Clare had justbeen entrusting Tom with some money, and various commissions. "Isn't allright there, Tom?" he added, as Tom still stood waiting.

"I'm 'fraid not, Mas'r," said Tom, with a grave face.

St. Clare laid down his paper, and set down his coffee-cup, and lookedat Tom.

"Why Tom, what's the case? You look as solemn as a coffin."

"I feel very bad, Mas'r. I allays have thought that Mas'r would be goodto everybody."

"Well, Tom, haven't I been? Come, now, what do you want? There'ssomething you haven't got, I suppose, and this is the preface."

"Mas'r allays been good to me. I haven't nothing to complain of on thathead. But there is one that Mas'r isn't good to."

"Why, Tom, what's got into you? Speak out; what do you mean?"

"Last night, between one and two, I thought so. I studied upon thematter then. Mas'r isn't good to _himself_."

Tom said this with his back to his master, and his hand on thedoor-knob. St. Clare felt his face flush crimson, but he laughed.

"O, that's all, is it?" he said, gayly.

"All!" said Tom, turning suddenly round and falling on his knees. "O,my dear young Mas'r; I'm 'fraid it will be _loss of all--all_--body andsoul. The good Book says, 'it biteth like a serpent and stingeth like anadder!' my dear Mas'r!"

Tom's voice choked, and the tears ran down his cheeks.

"You poor, silly fool!" said St. Clare, with tears in his own eyes. "Getup, Tom. I'm not worth crying over."

But Tom wouldn't rise, and looked imploring.

"Well, I won't go to any more of their cursed nonsense, Tom," said St.Clare; "on my honor, I won't. I don't know why I haven't stopped longago. I've always despised _it_, and myself for it,--so now, Tom, wipeup your eyes, and go about your errands. Come, come," he added, "noblessings. I'm not so wonderfully good, now," he said, as he gentlypushed Tom to the door. "There, I'll pledge my honor to you, Tom, youdon't see me so again," he said; and Tom went off, wiping his eyes, withgreat satisfaction.

"I'll keep my faith with him, too," said St. Clare, as he closed thedoor.

And St. Clare did so,--for gross sensualism, in any form, was not thepeculiar temptation of his nature.

But, all this time, who shall detail the tribulations manifold of ourfriend Miss Ophelia, who had begun the labors of a Southern housekeeper?

There is all the difference in the world in the servants of Southernestablishments, according to the character and capacity of themistresses who have brought them up.

South as well as north, there are women who have an extraordinary talentfor command, and tact in educating. Such are enabled, with apparentease, and without severity, to subject to their will, and bring intoharmonious and systematic order, the various members of their smallestate,--to regulate their peculiarities, and so balance and compensatethe deficiencies of one by the excess of another, as to produce aharmonious and orderly system.

Such a housekeeper was Mrs. Shelby, whom we have already described; andsuch our readers may remember to have met with. If they are not commonat the South, it is because they are not common in the world. They areto be found there as often as anywhere; and, when existing, find inthat peculiar state of society a brilliant opportunity to exhibit theirdomestic talent.

Such a housekeeper Marie St. Clare was not, nor her mother before her.Indolent and childish, unsystematic and improvident, it was not to beexpected that servants trained under her care should not be so likewise;and she had very justly described to Miss Ophelia the state of confusionshe would find in the family, though she had not ascribed it to theproper cause.

The first morning of her regency, Miss Ophelia was up at four o'clock;and having attended to all the adjustments of her own chamber, asshe had done ever since she came there, to the great amazement of thechambermaid, she prepared for a vigorous onslaught on the cupboards andclosets of the establishment of which she had the keys.

The store-room, the linen-presses, the china-closet, the kitchen andcellar, that day, all went under an awful review. Hidden things ofdarkness were brought to light to an extent that alarmed all theprincipalities and powers of kitchen and chamber, and caused manywonderings and murmurings about "dese yer northern ladies" from thedomestic cabinet.

Old Dinah, the head cook, and principal of all rule and authority inthe kitchen department, was filled with wrath at what she consideredan invasion of privilege. No feudal baron in _Magna Charta_ times couldhave more thoroughly resented some incursion of the crown.

Dinah was a character in her own way, and it would be injustice to hermemory not to give the reader a little idea of her. She was a nativeand essential cook, as much as Aunt Chloe,--cooking being an indigenoustalent of the African race; but Chloe was a trained and methodical one,who moved in an orderly domestic harness, while Dinah was a self-taughtgenius, and, like geniuses in general, was positive, opinionated anderratic, to the last degree.

Like a certain class of modern philosophers, Dinah perfectly scornedlogic and reason in every shape, and always took refuge in intuitivecertainty; and here she was perfectly impregnable. No possible amount oftalent, or authority, or explanation, could ever make her believethat any other way was better than her own, or that the course she hadpursued in the smallest matter could be in the least modified. This hadbeen a conceded point with her old mistress, Marie's mother; and "MissMarie," as Dinah always called her young mistress, even after hermarriage, found it easier to submit than contend; and so Dinah had ruledsupreme. This was the easier, in that she was perfect mistress of thatdiplomatic art which unites the utmost subservience of manner with theutmost inflexibility as to measure.

Dinah was mistress of the whole art and mystery of excuse-making, in allits branches. Indeed, it was an axiom with her that the cook can do nowrong; and a cook in a Southern kitchen finds abundance of heads andshoulders on which to lay off every sin and frailty, so as to maintainher own immaculateness entire. If any part of the dinner was a failure,there were fifty indisputably good reasons for it; and it was the faultundeniably of fifty other people, whom Dinah berated with unsparingzeal.

But it was very seldom that there was any failure in Dinah's lastresults. Though her mode of doing everything was peculiarly meanderingand circuitous, and without any sort of calculation as to time andplace,--though her kitchen generally looked as if it had been arrangedby a hurricane blowing through it, and she had about as many places foreach cooking utensil as there were days in the year,--yet, if one wouldhave patience to wait her own good time, up would come her dinner inperfect order, and in a style of preparation with which an epicure couldfind no fault.

It was now the season of incipient preparation for dinner. Dinah, whorequired large intervals of reflection and repose, and was studious ofease in all her arrangements, was seated on the kitchen floor, smoking ashort, stumpy pipe, to which she was much addicted, and which shealways kindled up, as a sort of censer, whenever she felt the need ofan inspiration in her arrangements. It was Dinah's mode of invoking thedomestic Muses.

Seated around her were various members of that rising race with which aSouthern household abounds, engaged in shelling peas, peelingpotatoes, picking pin-feathers out of fowls, and other preparatoryarrangements,--Dinah every once in a while interrupting her meditationsto give a poke, or a rap on the head, to some of the young operators,with the pudding-stick that lay by her side. In fact, Dinah ruled overthe woolly heads of the younger members with a rod of iron, and seemedto consider them born for no earthly purpose but to "save her steps,"as she phrased it. It was the spirit of the system under which she hadgrown up, and she carried it out to its full extent.

Miss Ophelia, after passing on her reformatory tour through all theother parts of the establishment, now entered the kitchen. Dinah hadheard, from various sources, what was going on, and resolved to standon defensive and conservative ground,--mentally determined to oppose andignore every new measure, without any actual observable contest.

The kitchen was a large brick-floored apartment, with a greatold-fashioned fireplace stretching along one side of it,--an arrangementwhich St. Clare had vainly tried to persuade Dinah to exchange forthe convenience of a modern cook-stove. Not she. No Puseyite,* orconservative of any school, was ever more inflexibly attached totime-honored inconveniences than Dinah.

* Edward Bouverie Pusey (1800-1882), champion of the orthodoxy of revealed religion, defender of the Oxford movement, and Regius professor of Hebrew and Canon of Christ Church, Oxford.

When St. Clare had first returned from the north, impressed with thesystem and order of his uncle's kitchen arrangements, he had largelyprovided his own with an array of cupboards, drawers, and variousapparatus, to induce systematic regulation, under the sanguineillusion that it would be of any possible assistance to Dinah in herarrangements. He might as well have provided them for a squirrel or amagpie. The more drawers and closets there were, the more hiding-holescould Dinah make for the accommodation of old rags, hair-combs, oldshoes, ribbons, cast-off artificial flowers, and other articles of_vertu_, wherein her soul delighted.

When Miss Ophelia entered the kitchen Dinah did not rise, but smoked onin sublime tranquillity, regarding her movements obliquely out of thecorner of her eye, but apparently intent only on the operations aroundher.

Miss Ophelia commenced opening a set of drawers.

"What is this drawer for, Dinah?" she said.

"It's handy for most anything, Missis," said Dinah. So it appeared tobe. From the variety it contained, Miss Ophelia pulled out first a finedamask table-cloth stained with blood, having evidently been used toenvelop some raw meat.

"What's this, Dinah? You don't wrap up meat in your mistress' besttable-cloths?"

"O Lor, Missis, no; the towels was all a missin'--so I jest did it. Ilaid out to wash that a,--that's why I put it thar."

"Shif'less!" said Miss Ophelia to herself, proceeding to tumble overthe drawer, where she found a nutmeg-grater and two or three nutmegs, aMethodist hymn-book, a couple of soiled Madras handkerchiefs, some yarnand knitting-work, a paper of tobacco and a pipe, a few crackers, one ortwo gilded china-saucers with some pomade in them, one or two thin oldshoes, a piece of flannel carefully pinned up enclosing some small whiteonions, several damask table-napkins, some coarse crash towels, sometwine and darning-needles, and several broken papers, from which sundrysweet herbs were sifting into the drawer.

"Where do you keep your nutmegs, Dinah?" said Miss Ophelia, with the airof one who prayed for patience.

"Most anywhar, Missis; there's some in that cracked tea-cup, up there,and there's some over in that ar cupboard."

"Here are some in the grater," said Miss Ophelia, holding them up.

"Laws, yes, I put 'em there this morning,--I likes to keep my thingshandy," said Dinah. "You, Jake! what are you stopping for! You'llcotch it! Be still, thar!" she added, with a dive of her stick at thecriminal.

"What's this?" said Miss Ophelia, holding up the saucer of pomade.

"Laws, it's my har _grease_;--I put it thar to have it handy."

"Do you use your mistress' best saucers for that?"

"Law! it was cause I was driv, and in sich a hurry;--I was gwine tochange it this very day."

"Here are two damask table-napkins."

"Them table-napkins I put thar, to get 'em washed out, some day."

"Don't you have some place here on purpose for things to be washed?"

"Well, Mas'r St. Clare got dat ar chest, he said, for dat; but I likesto mix up biscuit and hev my things on it some days, and then it an'thandy a liftin' up the lid."

"Why don't you mix your biscuits on the pastry-table, there?"

"Law, Missis, it gets sot so full of dishes, and one thing and another,der an't no room, noway--"

"But you should _wash_ your dishes, and clear them away."

"Wash my dishes!" said Dinah, in a high key, as her wrath began to riseover her habitual respect of manner; "what does ladies know 'bout work,I want to know? When 'd Mas'r ever get his dinner, if I vas to spend allmy time a washin' and a puttin' up dishes? Miss Marie never telled meso, nohow."

"Well, here are these onions."

"Laws, yes!" said Dinah; "thar _is_ whar I put 'em, now. I couldn't'member. Them 's particular onions I was a savin' for dis yer very stew.I'd forgot they was in dat ar old flannel."

Miss Ophelia lifted out the sifting papers of sweet herbs.

"I wish Missis wouldn't touch dem ar. I likes to keep my things where Iknows whar to go to 'em," said Dinah, rather decidedly.

"But you don't want these holes in the papers."

"Them 's handy for siftin' on 't out," said Dinah.

"But you see it spills all over the drawer."

"Laws, yes! if Missis will go a tumblin' things all up so, it will.Missis has spilt lots dat ar way," said Dinah, coming uneasily to thedrawers. "If Missis only will go up stars till my clarin' up time comes,I'll have everything right; but I can't do nothin' when ladies is round,a henderin'. You, Sam, don't you gib the baby dat ar sugar-bowl! I'llcrack ye over, if ye don't mind!"

"I'm going through the kitchen, and going to put everything in order,_once_, Dinah; and then I'll expect you to _keep_ it so."

"Lor, now! Miss Phelia; dat ar an't no way for ladies to do. I never didsee ladies doin' no sich; my old Missis nor Miss Marie never did, andI don't see no kinder need on 't;" and Dinah stalked indignantly about,while Miss Ophelia piled and sorted dishes, emptied dozens of scatteringbowls of sugar into one receptacle, sorted napkins, table-cloths, andtowels, for washing; washing, wiping, and arranging with her own hands,and with a speed and alacrity which perfectly amazed Dinah.

"Lor now! if dat ar de way dem northern ladies do, dey an't ladies,nohow," she said to some of her satellites, when at a safe hearingdistance. "I has things as straight as anybody, when my clarin' up timescomes; but I don't want ladies round, a henderin', and getting my thingsall where I can't find 'em."

To do Dinah justice, she had, at irregular periods, paroxyms ofreformation and arrangement, which she called "clarin' up times," whenshe would begin with great zeal, and turn every drawer and closet wrongside outward, on to the floor or tables, and make the ordinary confusionseven-fold more confounded. Then she would light her pipe, and leisurelygo over her arrangements, looking things over, and discoursing uponthem; making all the young fry scour most vigorously on the tin things,and keeping up for several hours a most energetic state of confusion,which she would explain to the satisfaction of all inquirers, by theremark that she was a "clarin' up." "She couldn't hev things a gwine onso as they had been, and she was gwine to make these yer young ones keepbetter order;" for Dinah herself, somehow, indulged the illusion thatshe, herself, was the soul of order, and it was only the _young uns_,and the everybody else in the house, that were the cause of anythingthat fell short of perfection in this respect. When all the tins werescoured, and the tables scrubbed snowy white, and everything that couldoffend tucked out of sight in holes and corners, Dinah would dressherself up in a smart dress, clean apron, and high, brilliant Madrasturban, and tell all marauding "young uns" to keep out of the kitchen,for she was gwine to have things kept nice. Indeed, these periodicseasons were often an inconvenience to the whole household; for Dinahwould contract such an immoderate attachment to her scoured tin, asto insist upon it that it shouldn't be used again for any possiblepurpose,--at least, till the ardor of the "clarin' up" period abated.

Miss Ophelia, in a few days, thoroughly reformed every department of thehouse to a systematic pattern; but her labors in all departments thatdepended on the cooperation of servants were like those of Sisyphus orthe Danaides. In despair, she one day appealed to St. Clare.

"There is no such thing as getting anything like a system in thisfamily!"

"To be sure, there isn't," said St. Clare.

"Such shiftless management, such waste, such confusion, I never saw!"

"I dare say you didn't."

"You would not take it so coolly, if you were housekeeper."

"My dear cousin, you may as well understand, once for all, that wemasters are divided into two classes, oppressors and oppressed. We whoare good-natured and hate severity make up our minds to a good deal ofinconvenience. If we _will keep_ a shambling, loose, untaught set in thecommunity, for our convenience, why, we must take the consequence. Somerare cases I have seen, of persons, who, by a peculiar tact, can produceorder and system without severity; but I'm not one of them,--and so Imade up my mind, long ago, to let things go just as they do. I will nothave the poor devils thrashed and cut to pieces, and they know it,--and,of course, they know the staff is in their own hands."

"But to have no time, no place, no order,--all going on in thisshiftless way!"

"My dear Vermont, you natives up by the North Pole set an extravagantvalue on time! What on earth is the use of time to a fellow who hastwice as much of it as he knows what to do with? As to order and system,where there is nothing to be done but to lounge on the sofa and read, anhour sooner or later in breakfast or dinner isn't of much account. Now,there's Dinah gets you a capital dinner,--soup, ragout, roast fowl,dessert, ice-creams and all,--and she creates it all out of chaos andold night down there, in that kitchen. I think it really sublime, theway she manages. But, Heaven bless us! if we are to go down there, andview all the smoking and squatting about, and hurryscurryation of thepreparatory process, we should never eat more! My good cousin, absolveyourself from that! It's more than a Catholic penance, and does no moregood. You'll only lose your own temper, and utterly confound Dinah. Lether go her own way."

"But, Augustine, you don't know how I found things."

"Don't I? Don't I know that the rolling-pin is under her bed, and thenutmeg-grater in her pocket with her tobacco,--that there are sixty-fivedifferent sugar-bowls, one in every hole in the house,--that she washesdishes with a dinner-napkin one day, and with a fragment of an oldpetticoat the next? But the upshot is, she gets up glorious dinners,makes superb coffee; and you must judge her as warriors and statesmenare judged, _by her success_."

"But the waste,--the expense!"

"O, well! Lock everything you can, and keep the key. Give out bydriblets, and never inquire for odds and ends,--it isn't best."

"That troubles me, Augustine. I can't help feeling as if these servantswere not _strictly honest_. Are you sure they can be relied on?"

Augustine laughed immoderately at the grave and anxious face with whichMiss Ophelia propounded the question.

"O, cousin, that's too good,--_honest!_--as if that's a thing to beexpected! Honest!--why, of course, they arn't. Why should they be? Whatupon earth is to make them so?"

"Why don't you instruct?"

"Instruct! O, fiddlestick! What instructing do you think I should do?I look like it! As to Marie, she has spirit enough, to be sure, to killoff a whole plantation, if I'd let her manage; but she wouldn't get thecheatery out of them."

"Are there no honest ones?"

"Well, now and then one, whom Nature makes so impracticably simple,truthful and faithful, that the worst possible influence can't destroyit. But, you see, from the mother's breast the colored child feels andsees that there are none but underhand ways open to it. It can get alongno other way with its parents, its mistress, its young master and missieplay-fellows. Cunning and deception become necessary, inevitablehabits. It isn't fair to expect anything else of him. He ought not tobe punished for it. As to honesty, the slave is kept in that dependent,semi-childish state, that there is no making him realize the rights ofproperty, or feel that his master's goods are not his own, if he can getthem. For my part, I don't see how they _can_ be honest. Such a fellowas Tom, here, is,--is a moral miracle!"

"And what becomes of their souls?" said Miss Ophelia.

"That isn't my affair, as I know of," said St. Clare; "I am only dealingin facts of the present life. The fact is, that the whole race arepretty generally understood to be turned over to the devil, for ourbenefit, in this world, however it may turn out in another!"

"This is perfectly horrible!" said Miss Ophelia; "you ought to be ashamedof yourselves!"

"I don't know as I am. We are in pretty good company, for all that,"said St. Clare, "as people in the broad road generally are. Look atthe high and the low, all the world over, and it's the same story,--thelower class used up, body, soul and spirit, for the good of the upper.It is so in England; it is so everywhere; and yet all Christendom standsaghast, with virtuous indignation, because we do the thing in a littledifferent shape from what they do it."

"It isn't so in Vermont."

"Ah, well, in New England, and in the free States, you have the betterof us, I grant. But there's the bell; so, Cousin, let us for a while layaside our sectional prejudices, and come out to dinner."

As Miss Ophelia was in the kitchen in the latter part of the afternoon,some of the sable children called out, "La, sakes! thar's Prue a coming,grunting along like she allers does."

A tall, bony colored woman now entered the kitchen, bearing on her heada basket of rusks and hot rolls.

"Ho, Prue! you've come," said Dinah.

Prue had a peculiar scowling expression of countenance, and a sullen,grumbling voice. She set down her basket, squatted herself down, andresting her elbows on her knees said,

"O Lord! I wish't I 's dead!"

"Why do you wish you were dead?" said Miss Ophelia.

"I'd be out o' my misery," said the woman, gruffly, without taking hereyes from the floor.

"What need you getting drunk, then, and cutting up, Prue?" said a sprucequadroon chambermaid, dangling, as she spoke, a pair of coral ear-drops.

The woman looked at her with a sour surly glance.

"Maybe you'll come to it, one of these yer days. I'd be glad to see you,I would; then you'll be glad of a drop, like me, to forget your misery."

"Come, Prue," said Dinah, "let's look at your rusks. Here's Missis willpay for them."

Miss Ophelia took out a couple of dozen.

"Thar's some tickets in that ar old cracked jug on the top shelf," saidDinah. "You, Jake, climb up and get it down."

"Tickets,--what are they for?" said Miss Ophelia.

"We buy tickets of her Mas'r, and she gives us bread for 'em."

"And they counts my money and tickets, when I gets home, to see if I 'sgot the change; and if I han't, they half kills me."

"And serves you right," said Jane, the pert chambermaid, "if you willtake their money to get drunk on. That's what she does, Missis."

"And that's what I _will_ do,--I can't live no other ways,--drink andforget my misery."

"You are very wicked and very foolish," said Miss Ophelia, "to stealyour master's money to make yourself a brute with."

"It's mighty likely, Missis; but I will do it,--yes, I will. O Lord!I wish I 's dead, I do,--I wish I 's dead, and out of my misery!" andslowly and stiffly the old creature rose, and got her basket on her headagain; but before she went out, she looked at the quadroon girt, whostill stood playing with her ear-drops.

"Ye think ye're mighty fine with them ar, a frolickin' and a tossin'your head, and a lookin' down on everybody. Well, never mind,--you maylive to be a poor, old, cut-up crittur, like me. Hope to the Lord yewill, I do; then see if ye won't drink,--drink,--drink,--yerself intotorment; and sarve ye right, too--ugh!" and, with a malignant howl, thewoman left the room.

"Disgusting old beast!" said Adolph, who was getting his master'sshaving-water. "If I was her master, I'd cut her up worse than she is."

"Ye couldn't do that ar, no ways," said Dinah. "Her back's a far sightnow,--she can't never get a dress together over it."

"I think such low creatures ought not to be allowed to go round togenteel families," said Miss Jane. "What do you think, Mr. St. Clare?"she said, coquettishly tossing her head at Adolph.

It must be observed that, among other appropriations from his master'sstock, Adolph was in the habit of adopting his name and address; andthat the style under which he moved, among the colored circles of NewOrleans, was that of _Mr. St. Clare_.

"I'm certainly of your opinion, Miss Benoir," said Adolph.

Benoir was the name of Marie St. Clare's family, and Jane was one of herservants.

"Pray, Miss Benoir, may I be allowed to ask if those drops are for theball, tomorrow night? They are certainly bewitching!"

"I wonder, now, Mr. St. Clare, what the impudence of you men will cometo!" said Jane, tossing her pretty head 'til the ear-drops twinkledagain. "I shan't dance with you for a whole evening, if you go to askingme any more questions."

"O, you couldn't be so cruel, now! I was just dying to know whether youwould appear in your pink tarletane," said Adolph.

"What is it?" said Rosa, a bright, piquant little quadroon who cameskipping down stairs at this moment.

"Why, Mr. St. Clare's so impudent!"

"On my honor," said Adolph, "I'll leave it to Miss Rosa now."

"I know he's always a saucy creature," said Rosa, poising herself onone of her little feet, and looking maliciously at Adolph. "He's alwaysgetting me so angry with him."

"O! ladies, ladies, you will certainly break my heart, between you,"said Adolph. "I shall be found dead in my bed, some morning, and you'llhave it to answer for."

"Do hear the horrid creature talk!" said both ladies, laughingimmoderately.

"Come,--clar out, you! I can't have you cluttering up the kitchen," saidDinah; "in my way, foolin' round here."

"Aunt Dinah's glum, because she can't go to the ball," said Rosa.

"Don't want none o' your light-colored balls," said Dinah; "cuttin'round, makin' b'lieve you's white folks. Arter all, you's niggers, muchas I am."

"Aunt Dinah greases her wool stiff, every day, to make it lie straight,"said Jane.

"And it will be wool, after all," said Rosa, maliciously shaking downher long, silky curls.

"Well, in the Lord's sight, an't wool as good as har, any time?" saidDinah. "I'd like to have Missis say which is worth the most,--a couplesuch as you, or one like me. Get out wid ye, ye trumpery,--I won't haveye round!"

Here the conversation was interrupted in a two-fold manner. St. Clare'svoice was heard at the head of the stairs, asking Adolph if he meant tostay all night with his shaving-water; and Miss Ophelia, coming out ofthe dining-room, said,

"Jane and Rosa, what are you wasting your time for, here? Go in andattend to your muslins."

Our friend Tom, who had been in the kitchen during the conversation withthe old rusk-woman, had followed her out into the street. He saw her goon, giving every once in a while a suppressed groan. At last she sether basket down on a doorstep, and began arranging the old, faded shawlwhich covered her shoulders.

"I'll carry your basket a piece," said Tom, compassionately.

"Why should ye?" said the woman. "I don't want no help."

"You seem to be sick, or in trouble, or somethin'," said Tom.

"I an't sick," said the woman, shortly.

"I wish," said Tom, looking at her earnestly,--"I wish I could persuadeyou to leave off drinking. Don't you know it will be the ruin of ye,body and soul?"

"I knows I'm gwine to torment," said the woman, sullenly. "Ye don'tneed to tell me that ar. I 's ugly, I 's wicked,--I 's gwine straight totorment. O, Lord! I wish I 's thar!"

Tom shuddered at these frightful words, spoken with a sullen,impassioned earnestness.

"O, Lord have mercy on ye! poor crittur. Han't ye never heard of JesusChrist?"

"Jesus Christ,--who's he?"

"Why, he's _the Lord_," said Tom.

"I think I've hearn tell o' the Lord, and the judgment and torment. I'veheard o' that."

"But didn't anybody ever tell you of the Lord Jesus, that loved us poorsinners, and died for us?"

"Don't know nothin' 'bout that," said the woman; "nobody han't neverloved me, since my old man died."

"Where was you raised?" said Tom.

"Up in Kentuck. A man kept me to breed chil'en for market, and sold 'emas fast as they got big enough; last of all, he sold me to a speculator,and my Mas'r got me o' him."

"What set you into this bad way of drinkin'?"

"To get shet o' my misery. I had one child after I come here; and Ithought then I'd have one to raise, cause Mas'r wasn't a speculator. Itwas de peartest little thing! and Missis she seemed to think a heap on't, at first; it never cried,--it was likely and fat. But Missis tucksick, and I tended her; and I tuck the fever, and my milk all left me,and the child it pined to skin and bone, and Missis wouldn't buy milkfor it. She wouldn't hear to me, when I telled her I hadn't milk. Shesaid she knowed I could feed it on what other folks eat; and the childkinder pined, and cried, and cried, and cried, day and night, and gotall gone to skin and bones, and Missis got sot agin it and she said 'twan't nothin' but crossness. She wished it was dead, she said; and shewouldn't let me have it o' nights, cause, she said, it kept me awake,and made me good for nothing. She made me sleep in her room; and I hadto put it away off in a little kind o' garret, and thar it cried itselfto death, one night. It did; and I tuck to drinkin', to keep its cryingout of my ears! I did,--and I will drink! I will, if I do go to tormentfor it! Mas'r says I shall go to torment, and I tell him I've got tharnow!"

"O, ye poor crittur!" said Tom, "han't nobody never telled ye how theLord Jesus loved ye, and died for ye? Han't they telled ye that he'llhelp ye, and ye can go to heaven, and have rest, at last?"

"I looks like gwine to heaven," said the woman; "an't thar where whitefolks is gwine? S'pose they'd have me thar? I'd rather go to torment,and get away from Mas'r and Missis. I had _so_," she said, as with herusual groan, she got her basket on her head, and walked sullenly away.

Tom turned, and walked sorrowfully back to the house. In the court hemet little Eva,--a crown of tuberoses on her head, and her eyes radiantwith delight.

"O, Tom! here you are. I'm glad I've found you. Papa says you mayget out the ponies, and take me in my little new carriage," she said,catching his hand. "But what's the matter Tom?--you look sober."

"I feel bad, Miss Eva," said Tom, sorrowfully. "But I'll get the horsesfor you."

"But do tell me, Tom, what is the matter. I saw you talking to cross oldPrue."

Tom, in simple, earnest phrase, told Eva the woman's history. She didnot exclaim or wonder, or weep, as other children do. Her cheeks grewpale, and a deep, earnest shadow passed over her eyes. She laid bothhands on her bosom, and sighed heavily.