staff. The aide assented.

"Your excellent desire shall be gratified," said the General. "I doubt
not Father Laxabon will presently visit you in your tent."

Father Laxabon had heard rumours of the horrors perpetrated in the
French colony within the last two nights. On being told that his
attendance was equally desired by a fugitive negro, he recoiled for a
moment from what he might have to hear.

When he entered the tent, he found Toussaint alone, on the ground, his
bosom bursting with deep and thick-coming sobs, "How is this, my son?"
said the priest. "Is this grief, or is it penitence?"

"I am free," said Toussaint, "and I am an oppression to myself. I did
not seek freedom. I was at ease, and did not desire it, seeing how men
abuse their freedom."

"You must not, then, abuse your freedom, my son," said the priest,
wholly relieved.

"How shall I appear before God--I who have ever been guided, and who
know not whether I can guide myself--my master gone--my employment
gone--and I, by his will, a free man, but unprepared, unfit?--Receive my
confession, father, and guide me from this time."

"Willingly, my son. He who has appointed a new lot to you will enable
me to guide you in it."

The tent was closed; and Toussaint kneeled to relieve his full heart
from its new sense of freedom, by subjecting himself to a task-master of
the soul.

CHAPTER FIVE.

GRIEFS OF THE LOYAL.

Margot doubted much, at the end of the first week, and at the end of
every following week, whether she liked freedom. Margot had had few
cares during the many years that she had lived under the mild rule of
Monsieur Bayou--her husband faithful and kind, and her children provided
for without present anxiety on her part. Thoughts of the future would,
it is true, occasionally trouble her, as she knew they weighed heavily
on her husband's mind. When she saw Genifrede growing up, handsome in
her parents' eyes, and so timid and reserved that her father sometimes
said he wondered whether any one would ever know her mind better than
her own family did--when Margot looked upon Genifrede, and considered
that her lot in life depended on the will of Monsieur Bayou, she
shuddered to think what it might be. When Monsieur Bayou told Genifrede
that she was well coiffee, or that he wished she would show the other
girls among the house-negroes how to make their Sunday gowns sit like
hers, Genifrede invariably appeared not to hear, and often wa