d, and he gestured
with an unconscious eagerness. Miss Ophelia had never seen him in this
mood before, and she sat perfectly silent.

"I declare to you," said he, suddenly stopping before his cousin "(It's
no sort of use to talk or to feel on this subject), but I declare to
you, there have been times when I have thought, if the whole country
would sink, and hide all this injustice and misery from the light, I
would willingly sink with it. When I have been travelling up and down
on our boats, or about on my collecting tours, and reflected that every
brutal, disgusting, mean, low-lived fellow I met, was allowed by our
laws to become absolute despot of as many men, women and children, as
he could cheat, steal, or gamble money enough to buy,--when I have seen
such men in actual ownership of helpless children, of young girls and
women,--I have been ready to curse my country, to curse the human race!"

"Augustine! Augustine!" said Miss Ophelia, "I'm sure you've said enough.
I never, in my life, heard anything like this, even at the North."

"At the North!" said St. Clare, with a sudden change of expression, and
resuming something of his habitual careless tone. "Pooh! your northern
folks are cold-blooded; you are cool in everything! You can't begin to
curse up hill and down as we can, when we get fairly at it."

"Well, but the question is," said Miss Ophelia.

"O, yes, to be sure, the _question is_,--and a deuce of a question it
is! How came _you_ in this state of sin and misery? Well, I shall
answer in the good old words you used to teach me, Sundays. I came so by
ordinary generation. My servants were my father's, and, what is more,
my mother's; and now they are mine, they and their increase, which bids
fair to be a pretty considerable item. My father, you know, came first
from New England; and he was just such another man as your father,--a
regular old Roman,--upright, energetic, noble-minded, with an iron will.
Your father settled down in New England, to rule over rocks and stones,
and to force an existence out of Nature; and mine settled in Louisiana,
to rule over men and women, and force existence out of them. My mother,"
said St. Clare, getting up and walking to a picture at the end of the
room, and gazing upward with a face fervent with veneration, "_she was
divine!_ Don't look at me so!--you know what I mean! She probably was of
mortal birth; but, as far as ever I could observe, there was no trace
of any human weak