id Miss Ophelia,--"I know it was so
with me, till I saw that it was my duty to overcome it; but, I trust I
have overcome it; and I know there are many good people at the north,
who in this matter need only to be _taught_ what their duty is, to do
it. It would certainly be a greater self-denial to receive heathen among
us, than to send missionaries to them; but I think we would do it."

"_You_ would I know," said St. Clare. "I'd like to see anything you
wouldn't do, if you thought it your duty!"

"Well, I'm not uncommonly good," said Miss Ophelia. "Others would,
if they saw things as I do. I intend to take Topsy home, when I go.
I suppose our folks will wonder, at first; but I think they will be
brought to see as I do. Besides, I know there are many people at the
north who do exactly what you said."

"Yes, but they are a minority; and, if we should begin to emancipate to
any extent, we should soon hear from you."

Miss Ophelia did not reply. There was a pause of some moments; and St.
Clare's countenance was overcast by a sad, dreamy expression.

"I don't know what makes me think of my mother so much, tonight," he
said. "I have a strange kind of feeling, as if she were near me. I keep
thinking of things she used to say. Strange, what brings these past
things so vividly back to us, sometimes!"

St. Clare walked up and down the room for some minutes more, and then
said,

"I believe I'll go down street, a few moments, and hear the news,
tonight."

He took his hat, and passed out.

Tom followed him to the passage, out of the court, and asked if he
should attend him.

"No, my boy," said St. Clare. "I shall be back in an hour."

Tom sat down in the verandah. It was a beautiful moonlight evening,
and he sat watching the rising and falling spray of the fountain, and
listening to its murmur. Tom thought of his home, and that he should
soon be a free man, and able to return to it at will. He thought how he
should work to buy his wife and boys. He felt the muscles of his
brawny arms with a sort of joy, as he thought they would soon belong
to himself, and how much they could do to work out the freedom of his
family. Then he thought of his noble young master, and, ever second to
that, came the habitual prayer that he had always offered for him; and
then his thoughts passed on to the beautiful Eva, whom he now thought of
among the angels; and he thought till he almost fancied that that bright
face and golden hair were loo