An hour passed. She began to get seriously alarmed. She sent away the carriage. Hardly had it gone, when a second vehicle drew up before the door, and out of it stepped Mr. Ratcliff. She met him in the parlor, and, fearing to tell the truth, merely remarked, that Ellen was out making a few purchases.

"When will she be back?"

66

'Perhaps not till dinner-time."

"Then I'll call to-morrow at this hour."

Mrs. Gentry passed the day in a state of wretched anxiety. She sent out messengers. She interested a policeman in the search. But no trace of the fugitive! Mrs. Gentry was in despair. If Ellen had not been a slave, her disappearance would have been comparatively a small matter. If it had been somebody's free-born daughter who had absconded, it would n't have been half so bad. But here was a slave! One whose flight would lay open to suspicion the teacher's allegiance to the institution! Intolerable! Of course it was no concern of hers to what fate that slave was about to be consigned.

Ah! sister of the South, (and I have known many, the charms of whose persons and manners I thought incomparable,) a woman whose own virtue is not rooted in sand, cannot, if she thinks and reasons, fail to shudder at a system which sends other women, perhaps as innocent and pure as she herself, to be sold to brutal men at auctions. And yet, if any one had told Mrs. Gentry she was no better than a procuress, both she and the Rev. Dr. Palmer would have thought it an impious aspersion.

At the appointed hour Ratcliff appeared. Mrs. Gentry's toilet that day was appropriate to the calamitous occasion. She was dressed in a black silk robe intensely flounced, and decorated around the bust with a profluvium of black lace that might have melted the heart of a Border-ruffian. She entered the parlor, tragically shaking out a pocket handkerchief with an edging of black.

66

"O Mr. Ratcliff! Mr. Ratcliff!" she exclaimed, rushing forward, then checking herself melodramatically, and seizing the back of a chair, as if for support.

"Well, madam, what's the matter?"

Mrs. Gentry answered by applying her handkerchief to her eyes very much as Mrs. Siddons used to do in Belvidera.

"Come, madam," interrupted Ratcliff, "my time is precious. No damned nonsense, if you please. To the point. What has happened?"

Rudely shocked into directness by these words, Mrs. Gentry replied: "She has disappeared, - r-r-run away!"

"Damnation!" was Ratcliff's concise and emphatic comment. He started up and paced the room. "This is a

damned pretty return for my confidence, madam."

"In the next world, if not in this."

"Pooh! When did she disappear?"

"Yesterday, while I was waiting for her to go out to buy her new dresses. O the ingratitude!”

"Have you made no search for her?"

"Yes, I've made every possible inquiry. I've paid ten dollars to a police-officer to look her up. O the ingratitude of the world! But she 'll be come up with!"

"Did you let her know that I was her master?"

"Yes, 't was only yesterday I imparted the information."

"How did she receive it?"

"She was a little startled at first, but soon seemed reconciled, even pleased with the idea of her new wardrobe."

"Have you closely questioned your domestics?"

"Yes. They know nothing. She must have slipped unobserved out of the house."

"Is there any one among them with whom she was more familiar than with another?

"She used to read the Bible to old Esha, by my direction." "Call up old Esha. I would like to question her."

Esha soon appeared, her bronzed face glistening with perspiration from the kitchen fire, the never-failing brightcolored Madras handkerchief on her head.

"Esha," said Mr. Ratcliff, "have you ever seen me before?"

"Yes, Massa Ratcliff, of'n. Lib'd on de nex' plantation to yourn. I 'longed to Massa Peters wunst. But he 'm dead and gone."

" Do you know what an oath is, Esha?”

"Yes, massa, it's when one swar he know dis or dunno dat." "Very well. Do you know what becomes of her who swears falsely?"

"O yes, massa; she go to de lake of brimstone and fire, whar' she hab bad time for eber and eber, Amen."

"Are you a Christian, Esha?"

"I'ze notin' else, Massa Ratcliff."

"Well, Esha, here's the Holy Bible. Take it in your left hand, kiss the book, and then hold up your right hand."

Esha went through the required form.

"You do solemnly swear, as you hope to be saved from the torments of hell through all eternity, that you will truly answer, to the best of your knowledge and belief, the questions I may put to you. And if you lie, may the Lord strike you dead. Now kiss the book again, to show you take the oath." Esha kissed the book, and returned it to the table.

"Now, then, do you know anything of the disappearance of this girl, Ellen Murray?"

"Nuffin, massa, nuffin at all."

"Did she ever tell you she meant to leave this house? "Nebber, massa! She nebber tell me any sich ting." "Did she have any talk with you yesterday?"

"Not a bressed word did dat chile say to me 'cep ter scole me 'cause I did n't do up her Organdy muslin nice as she 'spected. De little hateful she-debble ! How can dis ole nig do eb'ry ting all at wunst, and do 't well, should like ter know? It's cook an' wash an' iron, an' iron an' wash an'

"There! That will do, Esha. You can go.". "Yes, Massa Ratcliff."

Stealing into the next room, Esha listened at the foldingdoors.

"She knows nothing, that's very clear," said Ratcliff. He went to the window, and looked out in silence a full minute; then, coming back, added: "Stop snivelling, madam. I'm not a fool. I've seen women before now. This girl must be

found if it costs me ten thousand dollars. And you

--

well and good. If I This is what I mean to

must aid in the search. If I find her, don't find her, you shall suffer for it. do: I shall have copies of her photograph put in the hands of the best detectives in the city. I shall pay them well in advance, and promise five hundred dollars to the one that finds her. They'll come to you. You must give them all the information you can, and lend them your servants to identify the girl. This old Esha plainly has a grudge against her, and may be made useful in hunting her up. Let her go out daily for that purpose. Tell all your pupils to be on the watch. I'll break up your school if she is n't found. Do you understand?” "I'll do all I can, sir, to have her caught."

"That will be your most prudent course, madam.”

And Ratcliff, with more exasperation in his face than his words had expressed, quitted the house.

"The brute!" muttered Mrs. Gentry, as through the blinds she saw him enter his barouche, and drive off. "He treated me as if I'd been a drab. But he'll be come up with, - he will!"

Esha crept down into the kitchen, with thoughts intent on what she had heard.

CHAPTER XXII.

THE YOUNG LADY WITH A CARPET-BAG.

"Pain has its own noble joy when it kindles a consciousness of life, before stagnant and torpid."- John Sterling.

(HILDREN are quick to detect flaws in the genealogy of their associates. School-girls are quite as exclusive in their notions as our grown-up leaders of society. Woe to the candidate for companionship on whose domestic record there hangs a doubt!

Mrs. Gentry having felt it her duty to inform her pupils that Clara was not a lady, the latter was thenceforth "left out in the cold" by the little Brahmins of the seminary. She would sit, like a criminal, apart from the rest, or in play-hours seek the company, either of Esha or the mocking-bird.

One circumstance puzzled the other young ladies. They' could not understand why, in the more showy accomplishments of music, singing, and dancing, more expense should be bestowed on Clara's education than on theirs. The elegance and variety of her toilet excited at once their envy and their curiosity.

Clara, finding that she was held back from serious studies, gave her thoughts to them all the more resolutely, and excelled in them so far as to shock the conservative notions of Mrs. Gentry, who thought such acquisitions presumptuous in a slave. The pupils all tossed their little heads, and turned their backs, when Clara drew near. All but one. Laura Tremaine prized Clara's counsels on questions of dress, and defied the jeers and frowns that would deter her from cultivating the acquaintance of one suspected of ignoble birth. Something almost like a friendship grew up between the two. Laura was the only daughter of a wealthy cotton-broker who resided the greater part of the year in New Orleans, at the St. Charles Hotel.

The two girls used to stroll through the garden with arms about each other's waist. One day Clara, in a gush of candor,