of it, secretly washed it, and placed it as a holy symbol on her bosom. Mrs. Gentry expatiated to her pupils on the righteousness and venerableness of slavery. Clara cut out from a pictorial paper a poor little dingy picture of Fremont, and concealed it between two leaves of her Bible, underlining on one of them these words: "Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof."

Esha, the colored cook, a slave, was Clara's fast friend in all her youthful troubles. Esha had passed through all degrees of slavery,—from toiling in a cotton-field to serving as a lady's maid. Having had a child, a little girl, taken from her and sold, she ever afterwards refused to be again a mother. The straight hair, coppery hue, and somewhat Caucasian cast of features of this slave showed that she belonged to a race different from that of the ordinary negro. She had been named Ayesha, after one of Mahomet's wives. She generally wore a Madras handkerchief about her head, and showed a partiality for brilliant colors. Many were the stealthy interviews that she and Clara enjoyed together.

Said Esha, on one of these occasions: "Don't b'leeb 'em, darlin', whan dey say de slabe am berry happy, an' all dat. No slabe dat hab any sense am happy. He know, he do, dat suffn's tuk away from him dat God gabe him, and meant he sh'd hole on ter; and so he feel ollerz kind o' mean afore God an' man too; an' I 'fy anybody, white or black, to be happy who feel dat ar way."

"But it is n't the slave's fault, Esha, that he's a slave."

"It's de slabe's fault dat he stay a slabe, darlin'," said the old woman, with a strange kindling of the eyes. "But den de massa hab de raisin' ob him, an' so take good car' ter break down all dar am of de man in de poor slabe; an' de poor slabe hab no larnin', and dunno whar' to git a libbin' or how to sabe hisself from starvin'. An' if he run away, de people Norf send him back."

On studying Esha further, Clara discovered that she was half Mahometan, and could speak Arabic. Her mixed notions she had got partly from her father, Amri, who belonged to one of those African tribes who cultivate a pure deism, tempered only by faith in the mission of Mahomet as an inspired

prophet. Amri had been captured by a hostile tribe and sold into slavery. He lived long enough to teach his little Esha some things which she remembered. She could repeat several Arabic poems, and Clara first became familiar with the Arabian Nights through this old household drudge. One of these poems had a mystical charm for Clara. Through the illiterate garb which the slave's English gave it, Clara detected a significance that led her to write out a paraphrase in the following words:

"The sick man lay on his bed of pain. 'Allah!' he moaned; and his heart grew tender, and his eyes moist, with prayer.

"The next morning the tempter said to him: 'No answer comes from Allah. Call louder, still no Allah will hear thee or ease thy pain.'

"The sick man shuddered. His heart grew cold with doubt and inquietude; when suddenly before him stood Elias.

"Child!' said Elias, 'why art thou sad? Dost think thy prayers are unheard and unanswered; that thy devotion is all in vain?'

6

"And the sick man replied: Ah! so often, and with such tears I have called on Allah! I call Allah! but never do I hear his "Here am I!"' "And Elias left the sick man; but God said to Elias: 'Go to the tempted one; lift him up from his despair and unbelief.

"Tell him that his very longing is its own fulfilment; that his very prayer, "Come, Allah!" is Allah's answer, "Here am I!""

"Yes, every good aspiration is an angel straight from God. Say from the heart, 'O my Father!' and that very utterance is the Father's reply, 'Here, my child!'"*

Like many native Africans, Esha was fully assured of the existence of spirits, and of their power, in exceptional cases, to manifest themselves to mortals. And she related so many facts within her own experience, that Clara became a believer on human testimony, the more readily because Esha's faith in demonism was unmixed with superstition.

"Tell me, Esha," said Clara, at one of their secret midnight conferences, (6 were you ever whipped?"

"Never badly, darlin'. It ain't de whippins and de sufʼrins dat make de wrong ob slavery. De mos kindest thing dey could do de slabe would be ter treat him so he would n't stay a slabe no how. But dey know jes how fur to go, widout stirrin' up de man inside ob him. An' dat's the cuss ob slabery." "But, Esha, don't they generally treat the women well on the plantations?"

By Dscheladeddin, a famous Mahometan mystic.

"De breedin' women dey treat well, speshilly jes afore dar time,* - but I'ze known a pregnant woman whipped so she died de same night. O de poor bressed lily ob de world! O de angel from hebbn! O de sweet lubly chile! Nebber, no, nebber, nebber shall I disremember how I held de little gole cross afore dat chile's eyes, an' how she die wid de smile on her sweet face, and her own husband's head on her bosom.”

And the old woman burst into a passion of tears, rocking herself to and fro, and living over again the sorrow of that death-bed scene to which she and Peek and one other, years before, had been witnesses.

Clara pacified her, and Esha said, "You jes stop one minute, darlin', and I'll show yer suff'n." She went to her garret-closet, and returned with a small silk bag, from which she took a package done up in fine linen. This she unpinned, and displayed a long strand of human hair, thick, silky, soft, and of a peculiarly beautiful color, hardly olive, yet reminding one of that hue. Holding it up, she said: "Dar! Dat's de hair I cut from de head of dat same bress-ed chile I jes tell yer 'bout."

"But that is the hair of a white woman," said Clara. "Bress yer, darlin', she war jes as white as you am dis minute."

After some seconds of silence, Clara said, "Tell me of her." And Esha related many, though not all, of the particulars already familiar to the reader in the story of Estelle.

"Esha, you must give me some of that hair," said Clara.

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Yes, darlin', I'll change half of it fur some ob yourn." The exchange was made, Clara wrapping her portion in the little strip of bunting torn from the American flag.

On the subject of her birth Clara had put to Mrs. Gentry some searching questions, but had learnt simply that her parentage was unknown. For her concealed benefactor she had conceived a romantic attachment; and gratitude incited her to make the best of her opportunities, and to patiently bear her chagrins.

A month after the late interview with Ratcliff, Mrs. Gentry

* On the contrary, Mrs. Kemble says they are cruelly treated, and that the forms of suffering are "manifold and terrible" in consequence.

received a letter which caused Clara to be summoned to her presence.

"Sit down. I've something important to communicate," said the schoolmistress. "You 've often asked me to whom you are indebted for your support. Learn now that you belong to Mr. Carberry Ratcliff, whom you met here some weeks ago. He is the rich planter whose house and grounds in Lafayette you 've often admired."

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Belong to him?" cried Clara.

"What do you mean?

Am I his daughter? Am I in any way related?" "No, you 're his slave. He bought you at auction." Impulsive as her own mocking-bird by nature, Clara had learned that cruel lesson, which gifted children are often compelled to acquire when subjected to the rule of inferior minds, the art, namely, of checking and disguising the emotions. Excepting a quivering of her lips, a flushing of her brow, a slight heaving of her bosom, and a momentary expression as of deadly sickness in her face, she did not betray, by outward signs, the intensity of that feeling of disgust, hate, and indignation which Mrs. Gentry's communication had aroused.

"Did Mr. Ratcliff request you to inform me that he considered me his slave?" she asked, in a tone which, by a strenuous effort, she divested of all significance.

"Yes; he concluded you are now of an age to understand the responsibilities of your real situation. He not only paid a price for you when you were yet an infant, but he has maintained you ever since. But for him you might have been toiling in the sun on a plantation. But for him you might never have got an education. But for him you might never have heard of salvation through Christ. But for him you might never have had the privilege of attending the Rev. Dr. Palmer's Sunday school. Is there any sacrifice too great for you to make for such a master? Would it be too much for you to lay down your life for him? Speak!"

Mrs. Gentry, it will be seen, pursued the Socratic method of impressing truth upon her pupils. As Clara made no reply to her interrogatories, she continued: "As your instructress, it has been my object to make you feel sensibly the importance of doing your duty in whatever sphere you may be cast."

"And what, madame, may be the duty of a slave?" interposed Clara, stifling down and masking the rage of her heart.

"The duty of a slave," said Mrs. Gentry, "is to obey her master. Prompt and unhesitating obedience, that is her duty."

"Obedience to any and every command, is that what you

mean, madame?"

"Unquestionably, it is."

"And must I not exercise my reason as to what is right or wrong?"

"Your reason, under slavery, is subordinated to another's. You must not set up your own reason against your master's." Supposing my master should order me to stab or poison you, ought I to do it?"

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The judge's daughter, like all who venture to vindicate the leprous wrong on moral grounds, found herself nonplussed.

"You suppose a ridiculous and improbable case," she replied. "Well, madame, let me state a fact. One of your pupils had a letter yesterday from a sister in Alabama, who wrote that a slave woman had killed herself under these circumstances: her master had compelled her to unite herself in socalled marriage with a black man, though she fully believed a former husband still lived. To escape the abhorred consequence, she put an end to her life. Was that woman right or wrong in opposing her master's will?"

"How can you ask?" returned Mrs. Gentry, reproachfully. ""T is the slave's duty to marry as the master orders."

"Even though her husband be living, do I understand you ?" "Undoubtedly. Ministers of the Gospel will tell you, if there's wrong in it, the master, not the slave, is to blame." *

"I thank you for making the slave's duty so clear. You're quite sure Dr. Palmer would approve your view? "Entirely. All his preaching on the subject convinces me of it."

"And the woman, you think, who killed herself rather than be false to her husband, went straight to hell?"

*The Savannah River Baptist Association of Ministers decreed (1836) that the slave, sold at a distance from his home, was not to be countenanced by the church in resisting his master's will that he should take a new wife.