"I will trust you with the preliminary reconnoissance, Peek," said Vance, giving up the weapon. "Be quick about it.”

Peek beckoned to Antoine, and the two went out, followed by the bloodhound.

Mr. Semmes, now realizing that by some display of zeal, even if it were superserviceable, he might get rid of the ill odor which would follow from lending himself to Ratcliff's schemes, approached Vance and said: "Colonel, it was only quite recently that I heard of the suspicions that were entertained of foul play in the case of that little girl claimed by Ratcliff as a slave. Immediately I looked into the notary's record, and I there found that the slave-child is set down as a quadroon; a misstatement which clearly invalidates the title. I have also discovered a letter, written in French, and published in L'Abeille, in which some important facts relative to the loss of the Pontiac are given. The writer, Monsieur Laboulie, is now in the city. Finally, I have to inform you that Mr. Ripper, the auctioneer who sold the child, is now in this house. would suggest that both he and the Mrs. Gentry, who brought her up, should be secured this very evening, as witnesses.”

I

"I like your suggestion, Mr. Semmes," said Vance, in a tone which quite reassured the lawyer; "go on and make all the investigations in your power bearing on this case. Get the proper affidavit from Monsieur Laboulie. Secure the parties you recommend as witnesses. I employ you professionally."

In his rapid and penetrating judgments of men, Vance rarely went astray; and when Semmes, who was thinking of a little private business of his own with the President of the Lafayette Bank, remarked, "If you can dismiss me now, Colonel, I will meet you an hour hence at any place you name," Vance knew the old lawyer would keep his promise, and replied: "Certainly, Mr. Semmes. You will find me at 21 Camelia Place."

Peek and Antoine, taking a carriage, drove at full speed to the house designated. Here they found to their surprise in the mulatto Sam, a member of a secret society of men of African descent, bound together by faith in the speedy advent of the United States forces, and by the resolve to demand emancipation. Peek at once satisfied himself that Clara was in no immediate danger. He found that Sam had withdrawn the

bullets from Ratcliff's revolver, and was himself well armed, having determined to shoot down Ratcliff, if necessary, in liberating Clara. In pursuance of his plan he had lured the negrowoman, Agnes, up-stairs, under the pretence already mentioned. Here he had gagged, bound, and confined her securely. Hardly had he finished this job, when, looking out of the window, he had seen Peek and Antoine get out of a carriage and reconnoitre the house. Instantly he had run downstairs, opened the front door, and made himself known.

It was arranged that Antoine and Sam, well armed, and supported by the bloodhound, should remain and look after Ratcliff, not precipitating action, however, and not communicating with Clara, whose relief Peek had generously resolved should first come from the hands of Vance.

Then jumping into the carriage, Peek drove to Lafayette Square, and taking in Madame Josephine and Esha, returned to the St. Charles Hotel. Here he told Vance all he had done, and introduced the two women, Vance greeting Esha with much emotion, as he recognized in her that attendant at his wife's death-bed for whom he had often sought.

Four carriages were now drawn up on Gravier Street. Into one stepped Winslow, Hyde, and Vance; into another Semmes, Blake, Onslow, and Blake's trusty servant, Sergeant Decazes, the escaped slave. Into the third carriage stepped Madame Josephine, Esha, and Peek; and into the fourth, Mrs. Gentry and Mr. Ripper.

This last vehicle must be regarded as the centre of interest, for over it the Loves and Graces languishingly hovered.

In introducing Ripper to Mrs. Gentry, Semmes had remarked, in an aside to the former: "A retired schoolma'am: some money there!" Here was a shaft that went straight to the auctioneer's heart. In three minutes he drew from the lady the fact that, ten days before, she had received a visit from a Vigilance Committee, who had warned her, if she did not pay over to them five thousand dollars within a week, her house would be confiscated, sold, and the proceeds paid over to the Confederate treasury. "Five thousand dollars indeed!" said the lady, in relating the interview; " a whole year's income! O, have n't they been nicely come up with!"

The Confederate highwaymen had done what Satan recom

mended the Lord to do in the case of Job: they had tried Mrs. Gentry in her substance, and she had not stood the test. It had wrought a very sudden and radical change in her political notions. Even slavery was no longer the august and unapproachable thing which she had hitherto imagined; and she threw out a sentiment which savored so much of the abolition heresy, that Ripper, thinking to advance himself in her good opinion, avowed himself boldly an emancipationist, and declared that slavery was "played out." These words, strange to say,

did not make him less charming in Mrs. Gentry's eyes.

The drive in the carriage soon offered an opportunity for tenderer topics, and before they reached Camelia Street, the enterprising auctioneer had declared that he really believed he had at last, after a life-long search, found his "affinity." And from that he ventured to glide an arm round the lady's waist, -a familiarity at which her indignation was so feebly simulated, that it only added new fuel to hope.

But Camelia Place was now reached, and the carriages stopped. The whole party were noiselessly introduced into the house. Vance darted up to the room where Clara's note had instructed him he could find her. Seeing the key on the outside, he turned it, opened the door, and presented himself to Clara in the manner already related. The unsuspecting Ratcliff soon followed, and then followed the scenes upon which the curtain has already been raised.

As Vance left the house, with Clara on his arm, several of Ratcliff's slaves gathered round them. To all these Vance promised immediate freedom and help. An old black hostler, named Juba, or Jube, who was also a theologian and a strenuous preacher, was spokesman for the freedmen. He proposed "tree chares for Massa Vance." They were given with a will.

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"An' now, Massa Vance," said the Reverend Jube, may de Lord bress yer fur comin' down har from de Norf ter free an' help we. De Lord bress yer an' de young Missis likewise. An' when yer labors am all ended, an' yer 'v chewed all de hard bones, an' swollerd de bitter pill, may yer go ober Jordan wid a tight hold on de Lord, an' not leeb go till yer git clar inter de city ob Zion."*

* Actual words of a negro preacher, taken down on the spot by a hearer.

CHAPTER XLIII.

A

MAKING THE BEST OF IT.

"O, blest with temper whose unclouded ray

Can make to-morrow cheerful as to-day!"-Pope.

SOUND of the prompter's whistle, sharp and stridulous.

The scenes move, they dispart. The Crescent City, with its squares and gardens filled with verdure, its stately steeples, and its streets lying lower than the river, and protected only by the great Levee from being converted into a bed for fishes, the Crescent City, under the swift touch of our fairy scene-shifters, divides, slides, and disappears.

A new scene simultaneously takes its place. It represents a street in New York. Not one of the clean, broad, well-kept avenues, lined on either side with mansions, beautiful and spacious. It is a trans-Bowery Street, narrow and noisome, dirty and dismal. There the market-man stops his cart and haggles for the price of a cabbage with the care-worn housewife, who has a baby in her arms and a two-year-old child tugging at her gown. Poor woman! She tries to cover her bosom as the wayfarer, redolent of bad tobacco, passes by with a grin at her shyness. There the milkman rouses you at daylight by his fiendish yell, a nuisance not yet abated in the more barbarous parts of the city. There the soap-man and the fish-man and the rag-man stop their carts, presenting in their visits the chief incidents that vary the monotony of life in Lavinia Street, if we except an occasional dog-fight.

One of the tenements is a small, two-story brick house, with a basement beneath the street-level, and a dormer window in the attic. A family moved in only the day before yesterday. They have hardly yet got settled. Nevertheless, let us avail ourselves of the author's privilege (universal "dead-head” that he is!) and enter.

We stand in a little hall, the customary flight of stairs being in front, while a door leads into the front sitting-room or parlor on the left. Entering this room, the first figure we notice is an apparently young man, rather stout, with black whiskers and hair, and dressed in a loose sack and pantaloons, in the size and cut of which the liberal fashion of the day is somewhat exaggerated. He stands in low-cut shoes and fleshcolored silk stockings. About his neck he wears a choker of the most advanced style, and tied with a narrow lustring ribbon, gay with red and purple. As his back is partly turned to us, we cannot yet see who he is.

A woman, in age perhaps not far from fifty, with a pleasant, well-rounded face, and attired in a white cambric wrapper, richly embroidered, her hair prudently hidden under a brown chenille net, stands holding a framed picture, waiting for it to be hung. It is Marshall's new engraving of Washington. The lady is Mrs. Pompilard, born Aylesford; and the youth on the chair is her husband, the old, yet vernal, the venerable yet blooming, Albert himself. It is more than ten years since he celebrated his seventieth birthday.

Having hung the picture, Pompilard stepped down, and said : "There! Show me the place in the whole city where that picture would show to more advantage than just there in that one spot. The color of the wall, the light from the window are just what they ought to be to bring out all the beauties. Let us not envy Belmont and Roberts and Stewart and Aspinwall their picture-galleries, let us be guilty of no such folly, Mrs. Pompilard, while we can show an effect like that!”

"Who spoke of envying them, Albert? Not I, I'm sure! The house will do famously for our temporary use. Yet it puzzles me a little to know where I am to stow these two children of Melissa's."

"Pooh! That can be easily managed. Leonora can have a mattress put down for her in the upper entry; and as for the five-year-old, Albert, my namesake, he can throw himself down anywhere, in the wood-shed, if need be. Indeed, his mother tells me she found him, the other night, sleeping on the boards of the piazza, in order, as he said, to harden himself to be a soldier. How is poor Purling this morning?"