When it was finished Kenrick said: 66 Cousin, count me your ally in compassing your revenge. May God do so to me, and more also, if I do not give this beastly Slave Power blood for blood."

"I can't help thinking, Charles," said Vance, "that your zeal has the purer origin. Mine sprang from a personal experience of wrong; yours, from an abstract conception of what is just; from those inner motives that point to righteousness and God."

"I almost wish sometimes," replied Kenrick, "that I had the spur of a great personal grievance to give body to my wrath. And yet Slavery, when it lays its foul hand on the least of these little ones ought to be felt by me also, and by all men! But now

personal incentive.

now I shall not lack the sting of a Your griefs, cousin, fall on my own heart, and shall not find the soil altogether barren. This Ratcliff, I know him well. He has been more than once at our house. A perfect type of the sort of beast born of slavery, moulded as in a matrix by slavery, kept alive by slavery! Take away slavery, and he would perish of inanition. He would be, like the plesiosaur, a fossil monster, representative of an extinct genus."

"Cousin," said Vance, "all you lack is to join the serpent with the dove. Be content to bide your time. Here in Louisiana lies your work. We must make the whole western bank of the Mississippi free soil. Texas can be taken care of in due time. But with a belt of freedom surrounding the Cotton States, the doom of slavery is fixed. Give me to see that day, and I shall be ready to say, 'Now, Lord, dismiss thy servant!" "

"I had intended to go North, and join the army of freedom," said Kenrick; "but what you say gives me pause."

"We must not be seen together much," resumed Vance. "And now good night, or rather, good morning, for there's a glimmer in the east, premonitory of day. Ah, cousin, when I hear the braggarts around us, gassing about Confederate courage and Yankee cowardice, I can't help recalling an old couplet I used to spout, when an actor, from a play by Southern,

'There is no courage but in innocence,

No constancy but in an honest cause!'"

CHAPTER XXVI.

CLARA MAKES AN IMPORTANT PURCHASE.

"Allow slavery to be ever so humane. Grant that the man who owns me is ever so kind. The wrong of him who presumes to talk of owning me is too unmeasured to be softened by kindness."

LA

AURA TREMAINE had just come in from a drive with her invalid mother, and stood in the drawing-room looking out on a company of soldiers. There was a knock at the door. A servant brought in a card. It said, "Will Laura see Darling?" The arrival, concurring so directly with Laura's wishes, caused a pleasurable shock. "Show her in," she said; and the next moment the maidens were locked in each other's embrace.

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"O, you dear little good-for-nothing Darling," said Laura, after there had been a conflux of kisses. "Could anything be Have you

more apropos? What's the meaning of all this?

really absconded? Is it a love affair? Tell me all about it. Rely on my secrecy. I'll be close as bark to a tree."

"Will you solemnly promise," said Clara, "on your honor as a lady, not to reveal what I tell you?"

"As I hope to be saved, I promise,” replied Laura.

"Then I will tell you the cause of my leaving Mrs. Gentry's. "T was only day before yesterday she told me,—look at me, Laura, and say if I look like it! she told me I was a slave." "A slave? Impossible! Why, Darling, you've a com plexion whiter than mine."

"So have many slaves. The hue of my skin will not invalidate claim."

"That's true. But who presumes to claim you?"

"Mr. Carberry Ratcliff."

"A friend of my father's! He's very rich. I'll ask him Let me go to him at once."

to give you up.

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No, Laura, I've seen the man. "T would be hopeless to try to melt him. You must help me to get away."

to

"But you do not mean, surely you do not mean to

"To what, Laura?

You seem gasping with horror at some frightful supposition. What is it?"

"You'd not think of running off, would you? You wouldn't ask me to harbor a fugitive slave?"

Clara looked at the door. The color flew to her cheek,— flamed up to her forehead. Her bosom heaved. Emotions of unutterable detestation and disgust struggled for expression. But had she not learnt the slave's first lesson, duplicity? Her secret had been confided to one who had forthwith showed herself untrustworthy. Bred in the heartless fanaticism which slavery engenders, Laura might give the alarm and have her stopped, should she rise suddenly to go. Farewell, then, whiterobed Candor, and welcome Dissimulation!

After a pause,

"What do you advise?" said Clara. "Well, Darling, stay with me a week or two, then go quietly back to Mrs. Gentry's, and play the penitent."

"Had n't I better go at once?" asked Clara, simulating meekness.

Now I've

Then we 'll Who'd have

"O no, Darling! I can't possibly permit that. got you, I shall hold on till I've done with you. see if we can't persuade Mr. Ratcliff to free you. thought of this little Darling being a slave!" "But had n't I better write to Mrs. Gentry and tell her where I am? "No, no. She'll only be forcing you back. You shall do nothing but stay here till I tell you you may go. You shall play the lady for one week, at least. There's a Mr. Vance in the house, to whom I've spoken of your singing. He's wild to hear you. I've promised him he shall. I would n't disappoint him on any account."

Clara saw that, could she but command courage to fall in with Laura's selfish plans, it might, after all, be safer to come thus into the very focus of the city's life, than to seek some corner, penetrable to police-officers and slave-hunters.

"How will you manage?" asked Clara.

"What more simple ?" replied Laura. "I'll take you right into my sleeping-room; you shall be my schoolmate, Miss

Brown, come to pass a few days with me before going to St. Louis. Papa will never think of questioning my story."

"But I've no dresses with me."

"No matter. I've a plenty I've outgrown. They'll fit you beautifully. Come here into my sleeping-room. It adjoins, you see. There! We're about of a height, though I'm a little stouter."

"It will not be safe for me to appear at the public table.”

"Well, you shall be an invalid, and I'll send your meals from the table when I send mother's. Miss Brown from St.

Louis! Let me see. What shall be your first name?"

"Let it be Perdita."

Then

"Perdita? The lost one! Good. How quick you are! Perdita Brown! It does not sound badly. Mr. Onslow, Miss Brown, - Miss Perdita Brown from St. Louis! you'll courtesy, and look so demure! Won't it be fun ?” Between grief and anger, Clara found disguise a terrible effort. So! Her fate so dark, so tragic, was to be Laura's pastime, not the subject of her grave and tender consideration!

Already had some of the traits, congenital with slavery, begun to develop themselves in Clara. Strategy now seemed to her as justifiable under the circumstances as it would be in escaping from a murderer, a lunatic, or a wild beast. Was not every pro-slavery man or woman her deadly foe, -to be cheated, circumvented, robbed, nay, if need be, slain, in defence of her own inalienable right of liberty? The thought that Laura was such a foe made Clara look on her with precisely the same feelings that the exposed sentinel might have toward the lurking picket-shooter.

An expression so strange flitted over Clara's face, that Laura asked: "What's the matter? Don't you feel well?"

Checking the exasperation surging in her heart, Clara affected frivolity. "O, I feel well enough," she replied. "A little tired, that's all. What if this Mr. Onslow should fall in love with me?"

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"O, but that would be too good!" exclaimed Laura. Between you and me, I owe him a spite. said, speaking of me, Handsome, the fellow! I'd like to punish him.

I've just heard he once but no depth!' Hang He's proud as Lucifer.

Wouldn't it be a joke to let him fall in love with a poor little slave?"

don't mean to fall in love with him yourself?
He's good-looking, but poor. Can you keep a

"Well, I mean to set my cap for Mr. Vance."

"Possible?"

"Yes, Perdita.

He's fine-looking, of the right age, very

rich, and so altogether fascinating! Father learnt yesterday that he pays an enormous tax on real estate." "And is he the only string to your bow?" "O no. But our best young men are in the army. is a captain. O, I must n't forget Charles Kenrick. is to bring him here.

Onslow

Onslow

Kenrick's father owns a whole brigade of slaves. Hark! Dear me! That was two o'clock. Will you have luncheon?

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No, thank you. I'm not hungry."

"Then I must leave you. I've an appointment with my dressmaker. In the lower drawers there you'll find some of my last year's dresses. I've outgrown them. Amuse your

self with choosing one for to-night. We shall have callers." Laura hurried off. Clara, terrified at the wrathfulness of her own emotions, walked the room for a while, then dropped upon her knees in prayer. She prayed to be delivered from her own wild passions and from the toils of her enemies. With softened heart, she rose and went to the window. There, on the opposite sidewalk, stood Esha! Crumpling up some paper, Clara threw it out so as to arrest her attention, then beckoned to her to come up. Stifling a cry of surprise, Esha crossed the street, and entered the hotel. The next minute she and Clara had embraced.

"But how did you happen to be there, Esha?"

"Bress de chile, I'ze been stahndin' dar de last hour, but what for I knowed no more dan de stones. "T warn't till I seed de chile hersef it 'curred ter me what for I'd been stahndin' dar."

"What happened after I left home?"

"Dar war all sort ob a fuss dat ebber you see, darlin'. Fust