"I'll not fail to remember you in that event, Mr. Vance.” "Honor bright?”

“Honor bright, Mr. Vance!”

"Consider, Perdita, you can always find a home in this house. I shall give such directions to Mrs. Bernard as will make your presence welcome.”

“Then I shall not feel utterly homeless. Thank you, Mr. Vance!"

"And by the way, Perdita, do not let Miss Tremaine know that we are acquainted."

"I'll heed your caution, Mr. Vance."

“We shall meet again, my dear young lady. Of that I feel assured."

"I hope so, Mr. Vance."

"And now farewell! I'll tell Bernard to order a carriage and attend to your baggage. Good by, Perdita!”

"Good by, Mr. Vance.”

Again they shook hands, and parted. Vance gave his directions to the Bernards, and then strolled home to his hotel. As he traversed the corridor leading to his room, he encountered Kenrick. Their apartments were nearly opposite.

"I was not aware we were such near neighbors, Mr. Kenrick."

"To me also 't is a surprise, and a pleasant one. Will you walk in, Mr. Vance?"

Yes, if 't is not past your hour for visitors."

They went in, and Kenrick put up the gas. "I can't offer you either cigars or whiskey; but you can ring for what you want."

"Is it possible you eschew alcohol and tobacco?"

"Yes," replied Kenrick; "I once indulged in cigars. But I found the use so offensive in others that I myself abandoned it in disgust. One sits down to converse with a person disguised as a gentleman, and suddenly a fume, as if from the essence of old tobacco-pipes, mixed with odors from stale brandy-bottles, poisons the innocent air, and almost knocks one down. It's a mystery that ladies endure the nuisance of such breaths. My sensitive nose has made me an anti-rum, antitobacco man.

"But I fear me you're a come-outer, Mr. Kenrick! Is it conservative to abuse tobacco and whiskey? No wonder you are unsound on the slavery question!"

"Come up to the confessional," Mr. Vance! Admit that you 're as much of an antislavery man as I am.”

"More, Mr. Kenrick! If I were not, I might be quite as imprudent as you. And then I should put a stop to my usefulness."

"You puzzle me, Mr. Vance."

"Not as much as you've puzzled me, my young friend. Come here, and look in the mirror with me.”

Vance took him by the hand and led him to a full-length looking-glass. There they stood looking at their reflections. "What do you see?" asked Vance.

66

"Two rather personable fellows,” replied Kenrick, laughing ; one of them ten or twelve years older than the other; height of the two, about the same; figures very much alike, inclining to slimness, but compact, erect, well-knit; hands and feet small; heads, I have no fault to find with the shape or size of either; hair similar in color; eyes, as near as I can see, the two pairs resemble each other, and the crow's-feet at the corners are the same in each; features, nose, brows I see why you've brought me here, Mr. Vance! We are enough alike to be brothers."

"Can you explain the mystery?" asked Vance, "for I can't. Can there be any family relationship? I had an aunt, now deceased, who was married to a Louisianian. But his name was not Kenrick."

"What was it?”

"Arthur Maclain."

"My father! Cousin, your hand! In order to inherit property, my father, after his marriage, procured a change of name. I can't tell you how pleasant to me it is to meet one of my mother's relations."

They had come together still more akin in spirit than in blood. The night was all too short for the confidences they now poured out to each other. Vance told his whole story, pausing occasionally to calm down the excitement which the narrative caused in his hearer.

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When it was finished Kenrick said: 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."

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"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."

L

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. "O, you dear little good-for-nothing. Darling," said Laura, after there had been a conflux of kisses. "Could anything be more apropos? What's the meaning of all this? Have you 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?

وو

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

“Then I will tell you the cause of my leaving Mrs. Gentry's. "Twas 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 a 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

to give you up. Let me go to him at once."

No, Laura, I've seen the man. "T would be hopeless to

try to melt him. You must help me to get away."

Q

"To what, Laura?

surely you do not mean to

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

"You'd not think of running off, would you? You would n'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