w, listen to me, Mary, and I can state to you a very clear argument,
to show--"

"O, nonsense, John! you can talk all night, but you wouldn't do it.
I put it to you, John,--would _you_ now turn away a poor, shivering,
hungry creature from your door, because he was a runaway? _Would_ you,
now?"

Now, if the truth must be told, our senator had the misfortune to be
a man who had a particularly humane and accessible nature, and turning
away anybody that was in trouble never had been his forte; and what was
worse for him in this particular pinch of the argument was, that
his wife knew it, and, of course was making an assault on rather an
indefensible point. So he had recourse to the usual means of gaining
time for such cases made and provided; he said "ahem," and coughed
several times, took out his pocket-handkerchief, and began to wipe his
glasses. Mrs. Bird, seeing the defenceless condition of the enemy's
territory, had no more conscience than to push her advantage.

"I should like to see you doing that, John--I really should! Turning a
woman out of doors in a snowstorm, for instance; or may be you'd take
her up and put her in jail, wouldn't you? You would make a great hand at
that!"

"Of course, it would be a very painful duty," began Mr. Bird, in a
moderate tone.

"Duty, John! don't use that word! You know it isn't a duty--it can't be
a duty! If folks want to keep their slaves from running away, let 'em
treat 'em well,--that's my doctrine. If I had slaves (as I hope I never
shall have), I'd risk their wanting to run away from me, or you either,
John. I tell you folks don't run away when they are happy; and when
they do run, poor creatures! they suffer enough with cold and hunger and
fear, without everybody's turning against them; and, law or no law, I
never will, so help me God!"

"Mary! Mary! My dear, let me reason with you."

"I hate reasoning, John,--especially reasoning on such subjects. There's
a way you political folks have of coming round and round a plain
right thing; and you don't believe in it yourselves, when it comes to
practice. I know _you_ well enough, John. You don't believe it's right
any more than I do; and you wouldn't do it any sooner than I."

At this critical juncture, old Cudjoe, the black man-of-all-work,
put his head in at the door, and wished "Missis would come into the
kitchen;" and our senator, tolerably relieved, looked after his little
wife with a whimsical mixture of amusement and