She had not gone half a dozen paces, before some one came striding to her side. It was Harrington, and she instantly put her arm in his, with a gesture so sudden and joyous, that the young man thrilled.

“I am so glad you have come,” she said.

Emily had insisted on his leaving her, and attending upon Muriel, Harrington remarked.

“But you are pale,” he pursued, looking into her face, which colored and smiled under his kind and searching eyes.

“And now you are not pale,” he added, laughingly.

Muriel laughed silverly, and told the reason of her momentary agitation, which amused Harrington vastly.

Presently they reached the dingy alley in which Roux lived. It was a corner house, inhabited by several families. A flight of wooden steps led up to the second story, in which Roux had two rooms.

Roux was a white-washer, window-cleaner, boot-black and what not by occupation. He had come up from his little shop in Water street, down in the heart of the city, at the rumor which Tugmutton had brought him, that kidnappers were in town; for he was a fugitive, and since the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law he had never felt safe in Boston, where he had previously passed nearly nine secure years.

He was sitting on an old chair, in an attitude of deep dejection, crooning to his babe, which he held in his arms, with his other two children, a boy and girl, sitting on either knee. The baby was a pretty little boy, with negrine features, clear saffron skin, and glittering dark eyes. Josey, who sat on his right knee, was a slender, bright-eyed, brown-skinned little girl, six years old. Tom, sitting on the other knee, was like his sister, and four years of age. They were both pretty children, neatly dressed in clothes which Muriel and her mother had provided for them. Roux himself was a good-looking negro, athletic in build, dark-complexioned, with short, woolly hair, and heavy eyebrows. He was attired in an old sack coat and blue overalls, specked with white-wash, for he had come up to the house in his working clothes. The room in which he sat had received a touch of his art, as the yellow-washed walls and white-washed ceiling testified. It was a poor, low-browed apartment, but neat and clean, though pervaded by that frowsy odor which one often scents in the dwellings of the poor. The floor was bare. Three or four cheap colored prints hung in veneered frames on the walls. There was a trundle bed in one corner for the children; a small cooking-stove near the fireboard, with an immense deal of gawky funnel zigzagging up to a hole in the wall near the ceiling; a small clock ticking faintly on the mantelpiece, with some gaudy ornaments near it; a table, and half a dozen old-fashioned, second-hand chairs. Behind the family group was an open door, giving a view of another room, with a rag-carpet on the floor, a bureau, and a bed, on which lay, in her clothes, a mulatto woman, Roux’s wife.

Roux ceased his crooning as the broad-limbed, blobber-cheeked squab of a Tugmutton threw open the door, grinning from ear to ear, and lumbered in with the basket, which he deposited in the middle of the floor.

“You ain’t goin’ to be took back, father, this time,” bawled the cheerful youth. “It’s a false alarm. Gosh! I knew it wasn’t nothin’ but a false alarm. There ain’t no kidnappers in Boston, an’ never will be neither.”

“Tugmutton, what’s that?” demanded Roux, eyeing the basket.

The imp drew up his chunky figure with severe dignity, and rolled his saucer eyes and jerked his thumb over his shoulder. At the same moment Muriel’s courtly face and figure appeared at the door, with Harrington’s countenance smiling over her shoulder. The poor room was suddenly adorned by these fair, strong presences, and its frowsy air was sweetened and softened with delicate fragrance. Roux’s children scrambled down at once to run over to their smiling angel, who entered with affable and cordial grace, and stooped to fondle and kiss the little ones, while Roux himself rose, with the baby on his left arm, bowing confusedly, and smiling with considerable pompousness of manner, as of one who thought himself highly honored.

“How are you to-day, Mr. Roux,” said Harrington, coming over to the delighted negro, and shaking hands with him. “And how is your wife? And this little one,” he added, putting his large hand on the head of the staring baby.

“All right, Mr. Harrington,” returned Roux. “Though the madam’s not as well as she might be, sir,” he continued, in a grandiloquent tone. “She got a sort of a shock, Mr. Harrington, when this news come, and went right off into spasms. Clarindy’s awful scared lest some of these here days old master should send for me, and I’m right skittish myself, sir, in view of that catastrophe.”

Another person might have smiled at Roux’s half-anxious, half-pompous tone, but Harrington looked at him with a kind and concerned face, knowing how much real apprehension and distress his words covered.

“I am extremely sorry that your wife should have been alarmed,” said the young man. “But it’s true, as Charles said, that this is a false report.”

“Yes, Mr. Roux,” added Muriel, coming forward from the children, and giving him her hand, “it’s nothing but an idle rumor, so keep a good heart.”

“Thank ye, Miss Eas’man, and I am extrornerly rejoiced at the reception of this unlooked for intelligence,” returned Roux, bowing reverentially, while his manner grew more pompous, and his language more grandiloquent. “And the madam,” he continued, “will hear the glad tidings with great joy, likewise, Miss Eas’man. I heerd the shoutin’ and hoorawin’ in the street, though I wasn’t able to spekilate with any certainty as to its cause, an’ with the chil’ren here, an’ Clarindy a-lyin’ on the bed, feelin’ ruther weak, I found it on the whole, inexpedient to go out and see what was a goin’ on.”

He addressed the last sentence of this speech to Harrington. Muriel had gone into the other room, and was leaning over Mrs. Roux, speaking in a low, soothing voice, with her hands on the sick woman’s head. The children were prattling with each other, and Tugmutton was standing apart, with his short arms akimbo, the hands spread on his hips, and an expression of ineffable scorn on his fat, grey face, which was turned toward Roux.

“Now, father,” said the squab, taking advantage of the pause, “ain’t you ashamed? My gosh! I’m goin’ to blush at ye, father.”

“What’s the matter, Tugmutton,” asked Roux, with comical deprecation.

“What’s the matter? That’s a pretty question!” was the reproachful reply. “There you stand, and never ask Mr. Harrington to take a chair. That’s the matter. Do you call that doin’ the honors of the establishment?”

Roux looked abashed, while Tugmutton, with his face puffed out, and his eye sternly fixed upon the offending party, brought forward a chair, dumped it down under Harrington’s coat-tails, and retreating a couple of paces, put his arms akimbo again, still sternly regarding Roux.

The whole proceeding was so ineffably droll, that Harrington, sinking into the chair, with a hand on each knee, laughed heartily, though quietly, with his eyes fixed on the fat pigmy. Roux, who was very fond of Tugmutton, and submitted meekly to all his odd humors, regarding him, indeed, with an absurd mixture of puzzled curiosity and reverential awe, such as the good-natured Welsh giant might have bestowed upon Jack the Giant-killer, stood now, with the baby on his arm, uneasily eyeing his chunky mentor, and smiling confusedly. Nothing could be more amusing than the relation Tugmutton occupied toward him, and the rest of the family. They were all under the domination of this small, fat chunk. Tugmutton’s grand assumption of importance, and his authoritative airs, conjoined with his genuine affection for them all, which took the form of perpetual wardenship, had prevailed over the age and experience of both Roux and his wife. He was so old-fashioned, so queer, so mysterious and inconceivable a creature to them, that they looked upon him almost as a superior being, and petted and humored him in all possible ways.

“Just look at you, now,” continued the irate fat boy. “Do you call that the way to hold a baby? With his head hangin’ down, and every drop of blood in his body runnin’ into it! My gosh! that child’ll never have one speck of hair, father, an’ water on the brain, beside.”

Without feeling any apprehension of the capillary and hydrocephalous catastrophe thus ominously predicted as the inevitable consequence of his way of holding the baby, Roux glanced at the little one, whose head was drooping back over his arm, and whose fat, yellow fists were contentedly inserted in its mouth, and then gently shifted the position of the child, so as to rest its head on his shoulder.

“Just you give me that baby, father,” blurted out the fat boy, starting forward, and receiving in his short arms the infant which Roux readily abandoned to his charge. “There’s nobody knows how to take care of this poor child but me,” he indignantly continued, bearing off his burden, and sitting down with it in a short chair near the wall. “Lord a mercy! If it wasn’t for me, I don’t know what’d become of this family! Chick-a-dee-dee—chick-a-dee-dee—honey—honey—pretty Brudder Baby,” he chirruped, showing all his ivories in a jovial grin to the infant, and dancing it up and down in his short arms.

“Tugmutton’s great on takin’ care of the chil’ren,” remarked Roux to the smiling Harrington. “There aint no better boy than Tug nowhere, Mr. Harrington. He helps Clarindy a mighty deal, an’ he’s a reel comfort, I tell you.”

“Why, yes, Mr. Roux, so I see,” smilingly returned the young man. “And he learns the lessons I give him, very well. I shouldn’t wonder if Charles came to be a great man one of these days. He says he’s going to be a lawyer like Robert Morris.”

Robert Morris was a colored man, who had fought his way up against the prejudice of the many, and with the aid of a few, to an honorable position, which he then held, at the Boston Bar.

“Tell you what, Mr. Harrington,” said the proud Tugmutton, “Danel Webster won’t be nowhere when I come on the scene of action. I’ll make him stand round. Fugitive Slave Law’s bound to go then, an’ all the kidnappers’ll be hung right up.”

At that moment steps were heard, and Emily appeared at the door, coloring with the novelty of her situation, and followed by a short, thick-set man, in a straw hat, with his head bent sideways.

“Why, Emily!” exclaimed Harrington, starting up. “And with the Captain! Miss Ames, Mr. Roux. Captain Fisher you know.”

The superb beauty curtseyed low, with a sweeping rustle of silks, and Roux, fluttering at heart in the presence of the aristocratic lady, bent himself as if he had a hinge in his back. Harrington handed Emily a chair, into which she sank, smiling and nodding to the enchanted Tugmutton, and Muriel came floating out from the inner room with her natural urbane curtsey.

“Why, Emily!” she exclaimed, shutting the door behind her. “You too. Good morning, Captain Fisher.”

“It’s my doin’s, Miss Eastman,” said the Captain, in a cheery voice, looking at Muriel with his head on one side, and his hat on, as he shook hands with her. “Comin’ along, I see Miss Ames in the hack, and she said you was here; so I said, why not go too, and she took my extinded arm, and up we come together.”

He held Muriel’s hand as he made this explanation, and dropping it when he had concluded, stood looking intently at her, as though some reply was expected. He was a short man, with a round face, yellow and rosy, like a winter pippin; round, dark eyes, which never winked; a short nose, shaped like a beak; and he had a way of bending his head sideways, and looking at you like some odd bird. There was a general aspect of the sea-faring man about him, and he had been for many years the skipper of coasting vessels, in which occupation he had amassed some property. He now lived in the same house with Harrington, for whom he had a great affection, and did a little business in collecting rents for a number of house-owners.

“I just came up to let the folks here know,” he continued, “that there’s no sneakin’ soul-drivers come to Boston this time. I was told there was some of a crowd here, but they’re all scattered now, and I met Brown, who said he’d been informed ’twas a false alarm. No danger, I hope. The Vigilance Committee keep a sharp look-out ahead, and we’re pretty sure to know what’s goin’ on.”

In those dark days, when Boston had gone for kidnapping, there was an organization, composed of the leading Abolitionists, with a few anti-slavery people, young and old, who made it their business to keep a watch for Southern man-hunters, to warn fugitives of their danger, to assist them in their flight with money and arms, and in every practicable way to baffle the kidnappers. This was known as the Vigilance Committee, and its existence and efforts were among the few bright rays which lit the dark insanity of Boston at that period. Captain Fisher was a member of it, as was Harrington.

“I got here before you, Eldad,” said Harrington, smiling. “Charles came to the house with the rumor, and I ran down town at once, and found there was no truth in it.”

“Trust you for bein’ on hand, John,” returned the Captain. “You’re spry as a topman. When Gabriel toots that horn of his, you’ll be the first one up out o’ your grave.”

The Captain wandered over to Roux, and laying his hands on the negro’s shoulders looked at him steadily with his head curved sideways, then shook him gently to and fro, then got round to one side of him and took another look, and then punched him with his forefinger in the ribs.

“Roux, how are you?” he chirruped in conclusion, as the negro squirmed away from the fore-finger, good-naturedly smiling.

“Firs’-rate, Captain,” answered Roux. “Got scared though at that story.”

The Captain stood oblivious of his answer, looking at Tugmutton who, swollen with pride, was exhibiting the baby to Emily. Roux became absorbed in admiring awe at Tugmutton’s complacent familiarity with Miss Ames. Tugmutton was in one of his lordliest moods, proud of his exclusive aristocratic acquaintance, and conscious that Roux and the two children, who stood timidly at a distance, were following him with reverent eyes.

“It’s a very pretty baby,” said Emily graciously, turning to Roux, who hastened to smile and bow. “But, Mr. Roux, these three children do not resemble Charles at all.”

“Different style of beauty,” remarked Tugmutton, with preternatural gravity, rolling his great eyes up at Emily.

Emily laughed aloud at this oracular suggestion, and Harrington and Muriel looked at each other and smiled, while the Captain fixedly surveyed the squab with mute admiration.

“You know, dear,” said Muriel to Emily, “or rather you do not know, that Charles is only an adopted child of Mr. and Mrs. Roux.”

“Oh!” returned Emily, suddenly enlightened, “that accounts for the different style of beauty.”

“Yes, madam,” said Roux elaborately bowing, “that accounts for it.”

Emily smiled at the simplicity of the reply.

“And how did it happen that he got the name of Tugmutton, Mr. Roux?” she inquired.

“Well, Madam,” replied Roux, quite seriously, “it was a sort of accidental. When I firs’ got to Boston, Tug’s father and mother treated me right handsome. I was ruther bad off, an’ they took me in till I got somethin’ to do. They was very fat folks, both of ’em, an’ Tug was an uncommon fat baby. Somehow his father and mother never could fix on a name for him, so he growed along without none. Bimeby when he was three year old, his father died, and bimeby when he was five, his mother died likewise. I was married to Clarindy when that catastrophe happened, so feelin’ right grateful to Ezek’el and Sally Pitts—that was Tug’s father and mother’s name, madam—I took Tug in. That day we had a chunk of baked mutton, wich you couldn’t bite, madam, it was so tough, an’ after dinner we missed Tug all on a sudden. We got ruther skeered at not findin’ him, an’ went lookin’ round the streets, but couldn’t git no news of him. Long toward evenin’ we heerd a stir under the bed, an’ lookin’ under, there he was tuggin’ away at that chunk of mutton, and there he’d hid himself all the afternoon. I’m a miser’ble orphan, says he, the minute we sot eyes on him, never leavin’ off tuggin’ at the meat. You’re a young Tugmutton, an’ that’s what you are, says Clarindy. Then we larfed, and so after that we got to callin’ him Tugmutton, an’ he took to that name astonishin’. That’s the way of it, madam.”

Muriel and Harrington, who had heard this story before, listened to it now smiling, while Emily and the Captain, vastly amused during its repetition, laughed heartily as Roux ended. Tugmutton, meanwhile, sitting in the low chair with the baby, grinned sheepishly at the revival of this reminiscence of his miserable orphanage.

“Are you—that is, did you—escape from the South, Mr. Roux?” inquired Emily, hesitatingly, after a pause.

“Yes, madam, I did,” replied Roux with another elaborate bow. “It wouldn’t be well, madam, to have it mentioned roundabout, lest”—

“O never fear, Mr. Roux,” she rejoined hurriedly. “I wouldn’t speak of it for the world.”

“In fact, madam, I believe I never told any one about it,” continued Roux, falteringly, “with the especial exception of Mr. Harrington and Miss Eastman. But I did git away from the southern country, way down in Louzeana, nine years ago. And I’ve got a brother still there, madam, leastways if he’s alive, wich is not certain, seein’ that he was with an uncommon bad master, madam—in fact, one of the worst sort of masters, madam.”

“Why didn’t he run away with you, Mr. Roux?” inquired Emily.

“He was ruther scared at the resks, madam,” replied Roux, “Says I, Ant’ny—his name was Ant’ny, madam—Ant’ny, says I, Master Lafitte—Lafitte was old Master’s name, madam—Master Lafitte’ll be the death of us, Ant’ny. We’d better try to git away to that Boston we’ve heerd tell of. Ant’ny, says I, I’ve got three pounds of kian, Ant’ny, says I”—

“Of what?” asked Emily.

“Of kian, madam—kian pepper, you know.”

“O, yes. Cayenne pepper.”

“Yes, madam. Wich we can leave on the track, Ant’ny, says I, and that’ll throw off the hounds, I’m a thinkin’.”

“The hounds!” ejaculated Emily, knitting her brow with horror, and looking at the still face of Muriel and then at Harrington.

“Certainly,” said the latter, tranquilly. “In this free and happy country, they hunt men and women with hounds. When hounds fail, they try Fugitive Slave Law Commissioners.”

“And were you hunted, Mr. Roux?” asked Emily, shuddering.

“Yes, madam,” replied the negro, naively. “Ant’ny was afeared to try it, and then I thought I wouldn’t nuther, for he was my brother, and we’d been brought up together on old Madam Roux’s estate in New Orleans, and I was very fond of Ant’ny, madam. But next day, you see, madam, I was feelin’ ruther sick, and fell short in the pickin’—cotton-pickin’, you know. So when night come, Master Lafitte he flogged me awful, and then hung me up in the gin-house—hung me up by the wrists, an’ left me to hang overnight.”

Roux, hearing Captain Fisher muttering, paused. The Captain, with his head very much on one side, was swearing awfully in a low undertone at slavery and slaveholders in general. He usually contented himself with such mild oaths as “by the great horn spoon”—as people who leave off chewing tobacco supply its place with spruce gum. But as the spruce-gum chewers sometimes backslide into tobacco again, so the Captain, when he got excited, which was seldom, would backslide from his mild profanity into such swearing as sailors, who swear with genius, know how to express the passion of their souls withal.

“Bimeby, madam,” resumed Roux, still addressing Emily, who sat looking at him with a flush of fiery indignation on her beautiful countenance, “I sloshed about, an’ the rope broke an’ let me down. I jus’ got out of that gin-house mighty quick, I tell you. Then I went down a piece to the hollow stump, where I’d hid the kian an’ a carvin’ knife, which I’d took one day from the kitchen. I got the kian an’ the knife, an’ put off hot foot for the north. Jus’ about sunrise, I heerd Dan Belcher’s hounds a-comin’ after me—two of ’em, yellin’ awful. I was proper skeered, madam, but I jus’ made a hole in the paper of kian, an’ run on, holdin’ the paper low down on the trail, so’s to let the kian drop out along, you know. Then when the kian was all gone, I got skeered, an’ I run on a piece, an’ shinned up a live-oak ’way into the thick of the leaves, an’ lay still. ’Fore long, I see the hounds comin’, an’ Dan Belcher an’ old Toler an’ Master Lafitte ridin’ after ’em. I got so skeered I like to dropped, but I lay hush, an’ right soon I saw the dogs run up, an’ poke their noses into the kian. Ki-yi-yah,” cachinnated Roux, overcome with the reminiscence, “you ought to have seen them dogs, madam. They jus’ acted as if they’d got religion! They flopped down an’ rolled over, yellin’ like mad, an’ rubbin’ their noses into the kian, an’ rollin’ agin, an’ hollerin’—hi! Never saw nothin’ out of camp-meetin’ act like them cre’turs. ’Fore long up come old Master an’ Dan Belcher an’ Toler, an’ looked at them dogs. I couldn’t hear a word they was sayin’, but I spekilated they was wonderin’ what had got into them dogs. Then Dan Belcher, he got down, an’ dragged off the hounds, an’ poked his nose into the kian. Hi! I reckon he got a smell, for he jumped up rubbin’ his nose, an’ stampin’ round awful.”

Tugmutton, with the baby in his arms, burst into a screech of eldritch laughter, kicking up his feet from the low chair in which he sat, in phrenetic glee. All the others were silent, with faces intent on Roux.

“Bimeby,” resumed the negro, “Dan Belcher he laid a hold of the dogs, an’ dragged them on a piece to find the trail with no kian on it. ’Twasn’t no use, for the dogs didn’t do nothin’ but snuff an’ yell an’ roll over. So’n about a half an hour, I reckon, they all went back, an’ I lay hush in the tree all day. Along towards evenin’ I got down, an’ run on agin. Bimeby I come plump on a man. ‘Where’s your pass?’ says he. ‘Here it is,’ says I, givin’ him a dig with the carvin’-knife. ‘Ugh,’ says he”—

Everybody burst into a peal of laughter at the nonchalant, matter-of-fact simplicity with which Roux said this. Roux himself was rather amazed at the interruption, and stood, faintly smiling, with his whitewash-stained dark hand fumbling over his mouth, and his eyes uneasily roving over the laughing company.

“Well done, Roux,” said Harrington, jumping up, and slapping the negro on the shoulder. “‘Ense petit placidam sub libertate quietem,’” he continued, quoting the legend of the Massachusetts State-arms. “And you sought the tranquil rest of freedom with a carving-knife.”

“Yes, quietem was the word, and you did quiet him,” chuckled the Captain, punning upon the Latin. “Sic semper tyrannis, is another bit of that lingo, an’ I guess old tyrannis was rather sick when he got a touch of Roux’s carving-knife. By the great horn-spoon, that’s the richest thing I’ve heard lately!”

“But what did the man do then, Mr. Roux?” asked Emily.

“Ugh, says he, madam, and then he doubled himself up, an’ I run on,” replied Roux, simply. “Bimeby I come to the Red River, and I swum over. Then I run on agin, till I come to the Mississip, an’ hid in a wood-pile. Long toward mornin’ a flat boat came up the river, and hitched. Then I heerd the Captin say, says he, argufying with another man, and gittin’ mad with him, I’m Ohio, says he, and my men are Ohio, an’ we don’t care a damn for slavery, says he. Tother man went off, an’ I run out, an’ says, Captin, says I, I’ve run for my freedom, an’ won’t you take me with you, I says. Step right aboard, says he, an’ I’m damned if I don’t wish I’d a load more like you, says he.”

“Bravo,” cried Muriel, clapping her hands. “Good for Ohio!”

“Hooraw for Ohio!” piped Tugmutton, bouncing up, and flourishing the baby. “Chick-a-dee-dee, Brudder Baby, pretty little birdy,” he added, with a sudden change of key, wagging his bushy head and grinning blobber cheeks over the complacent infant. “Send him right down to Ohio. Kidnapper come to fetch Brudder Baby, won’t have no more chance than a bob-tail horse in fly-time when he gits to Ohio.”

Alas! poor Tugmutton!—the dark days could come even to Ohio! Broad and strong and generous the hearts of Ohio, mighty in noble impulse, mighty in love and bravery, mighty in truth to liberty and tenderness to man. But the rampart of Ohio hearts prevailed not in the black hour when Margaret Garner, with the hell-dog statute and the hunters upon her, sublimely slew her children to save from slavery the souls Ohio could not save.

“And so you escaped, Mr. Roux,” said Emily.

“Yes, madam,” returned Roux, “the captain took me all the way up to Cincinnati. Where are ye goin’ now, William, says he. Boston, says I. Men, says he, let’s give him an Ohio lift. Wich meant takin’ up a collection, madam,” explained Roux, bowing. “An’ the collection was fifteen dollars and thirty-three cents, madam, together with a suit of the captain’s clothes, an’ some vittles in a paper bag. Captain, says I, my gratefulness will never fail. William, says he, just hold on to that carving-knife, an’ don’t let yourself be taken. Captain, says I, if I ever git to heaven, I’ll make the Lord acquainted with all you’ve done for me. William, says he, don’t you never acquaint anybody but the Lord with it, or I’m a gone coon. An’ now make tracks, says he. So I made tracks, an’ come on safe to Boston.”

“Well, I declare!” exclaimed Emily, drawing a long breath, and looking around her. “It makes my blood boil to think that men are treated so in this country. And you never heard from your brother, Mr. Roux?”

“Never, madam. But I don’t think he’s alive. I’m afeared that Master Lafitte would kill him to be revenged on me, and that makes me feel, sometimes, as if I’d murdered my own brother.”

He said this in low, ghostly tones, with a sudden agony and horror convulsing his dark face. It is impossible to describe the shock of awful emotion which his words gave to Emily. There was a moment of solemn silence, in which Roux stood faintly gasping, with his swart visage ashen and distorted with overmastering anguish, and she, gazing on him with a blanched countenance, felt as if her very soul would die with pity.

“Couldn’t he be bought?” she timidly stammered, at length, half feeling that she was proposing an absurdity. “That is—I mean if he is—if he has not—died.”

Roux despairingly shook his head.

“If I had the money, madam,” he hoarsely faltered, “I’d try to buy him. But that’ll never be—never.”

“I’ll engage to furnish the money,” said Emily, vehemently, the generous color flooding her face like fire. “I will,” she added, stamping her foot as she sat. “If it costs me two thousand dollars, or twice two thousand, it shall be done.”

A dead silence ensued, in which she gazed at their mute faces. It was the brave New England scholar who did sweet service to liberty when the guns of tyranny stormed on Rome—it was Margaret Fuller who once gave away all her little property, five hundred dollars, to a poor exile, a stranger to her, whose distresses had touched her heart. Born of such an impulse, and kindred to that splendid generosity, was this act of Emily’s.

“Why do you all look so?” she continued. “I mean what I say.”

Harrington and Muriel, to whom she lifted her flushed face, were standing near each other, Muriel’s face still, solemn, and turned toward the window, Harrington’s noble countenance rigid, and bent upon the floor. The Captain stood looking at Emily with his head bent on one side, and his features all atwist. As for Roux, his black visage was wildly lighted with hope, joy, awe, and startled amazement, while Tugmutton sat in the low chair, with the baby in his arms, his mouth open, his huge eyes staring, and the big shocks of wool on his head seeming bigger than ever in his astonishment.

“It shall be done, I say,” declared Emily. “Harrington, I depend on you to show me the way.”

Harrington looked blank—like one who did not know how to answer her; then furtively glanced at Roux, and then at the floor.

“You are the soul of generosity, Miss Ames,” he said, after a pause, smiling constrainedly. “I should be happy to help you. We will see what can be done.”

Roux clasped his hands and bowed his head. In that instant, Harrington flashed a lightning glance at Emily, so stern, so menacing, so agonized in its look of warning and entreaty, that Emily was confounded. The next second, Roux’s face was raised, and Harrington’s wore an expression of such bland indifference, that Emily could hardly believe she had seen the other.

“We will speak of this another time,” said Harrington. “At present, I think I must go. Shall I see you to the carriage, ladies, or do you remain longer?”

Roux threw himself on his knees, and bending, grovelled at Emily’s feet. Then raising his black face, convulsed, and streaming with tears, he faltered out the broken words of his gratitude.

“I’ll pray for ye, forever and ever, Miss Ames,” he said. “I’ll pray to the Lord for ye, Miss Ames. And the blessing of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, be on ye, Miss Ames. I’ve had a good deal of kindness, but there’s never been no kindness like yours, Miss Ames, an’ I don’t want ye to give away all that money, madam, for it’s a mighty deal of money, though it’s for my brother, Miss Ames, and I’d clean give my life to see my poor brother, madam. And oh, if Master Lafitte will only sell him, if he’s alive, madam, I’ll pray for him too, and for everybody, forever and ever, amen, an’ for you more especial than anybody, for there never was such kindness as yours to a poor, miser’ble, forsaken black man—no, never, never.”

Uncouth words poured forth rapidly in a weak, broken voice, with sobs and tears; but words that blanched the gold and roses of the face that bent with swimming eyes over the bowed and weeping figure on the floor. In the cold, succeeding silence, there was no sound but the dim sobs of Roux. The Captain stood with his features screwed into a hard rigor, gazing at the abject form beneath him. Harrington’s face was wan and rigid, and fixed on vacancy. The two little ones, frightened and almost crying, clung around the stupefied and staring Tugmutton, who sat holding the baby, with the big whites of his eyes glaring at Roux from the ashy pallor of his fat visage.

“Mr. Roux.”

At the gentle, silver tones of Muriel, at the firm touch of her hand on his shoulder, the negro lifted up his bowed head from his breast, and gazed with a haggard, beseeching face, all wet with tears, at the benignant countenance that bent above him. For an instant only, and then rising to his feet, ashamed of his emotion, yet unable to repress it wholly, the poor fellow stood awkwardly wiping away his tears with his rough sleeve, with his breast heaving, and the stertorous sobs still breaking from him.

“It will all be well,” said Muriel, gently. “Do not grieve, Mr. Roux.”

“Yes, Miss Eas’man, I wont; indeed I wont grieve. But sometimes I git desperate, Miss Eas’man,” he faltered. “’Pears sometimes as if everybody was against us colored folks, Miss Eas’man.”

“Cheer up, Roux, we are all your friends here.”

It was the strong, sweet baritone of Harrington that sounded now. Roux looked up, smiling mournfully, into the masculine, calm features, which strangely comforted him.

“Yes, Roux, cheer up’s the word. ’Tan’t always goin’ to be slavery and slaveholders in this free and happy country, mind that, my man.”

Thus the Captain, shaking a fore-finger at the negro, and then cheerfully punching him in the ribs with it.

“An’ if I catch any kidnappers round this establishment, I’ll heave a brick at him,” screeched Tugmutton, in a rage, glaring with rolling eyes at everybody over the baby.

Emily, who had risen, and stood wiping her eyes with a cambric handkerchief, burst into laughter, in which Muriel and Harrington joined. Tugmutton looked awfully irate for an instant, and then grinned sheepishly.

“Come, come,” said Muriel, “we must be going. Where’s the basket? Oh, there it is on the floor. Mr. Roux,” she continued, stooping down to it, and unpacking, “I won’t go in again to your wife—by the way, I hope our talk has not disturbed her—but here are some baby-clothes which I wore myself when I was a baby—old things which I found yesterday, but they’ll do for the little boy. And here’s some nice beef and a pie, which my mother had cooked expressly for your dinner to-day. And here’s my copy of ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin,’ which you told me you hadn’t read. When you and your wife are done with it, Tugmutton, as you call him, can bring it up to the house, with the plates and napkins.”

The famous Uncle Tom had recently issued from the Boston press, and begun its illustrious journey through Christendom. Muriel handed the two volumes to Roux, who took them timidly, with a low bow, immensely gratified. The napkined meat and pie, she had already laid on the table, with the package of baby-clothes.

“And that’s all,” said Muriel, arranging the remaining contents of the basket under the fond eyes of Harrington. “The other things are for our Irish cousins in North Russell Street. You, John, shall carry the basket out to the carriage. Now let’s go.”

“Miss Eas’man,” said Roux, “I’m so much obliged”—

“Never mind, Mr. Roux,” interrupted Muriel, smiling gaily, “I see all that. Good bye.”

She stooped to kiss the children, then with a curtsey, glided from the room. Roux, timidly rubbing his hands one within another, bowed after her, almost servile in his reverence. Tugmutton, severely dignified, and swelling like the frog that tried to be an ox, with the proud consciousness that something great had been done, and that it was all due to him, stood in the centre of the floor, with the baby clasped against his shoulder, and serenely waved his big paw in token of his distinguished consideration. Emily smiled at him, and bowing to Roux, swept with a rich rustle of silk after Muriel, followed by Harrington with the basket. The Captain lingered to bounce up Tom and Josey once apiece to the ceiling, and to poke Roux in the ribs with an anti-slavery forefinger, and then, shaking his fist at the grinning Tugmutton, departed also.