d glibly of the
rare lot to be sold.

"Who owns the boy?" cried a bystander.

"Colonel James Purnell, of the Eastern shore," answered the
auctioneer. "His mother is a likely piece that will be in the market
presently."

Tears came to Paul's eyes, but he held down the great sob that started
to his throat, and called lustily: "It is a wicked story! My father is
white, and my mother is white! I am not a slave, and they have stolen
me!"

A loud, long laugh broke from the crowd, and the trader cracked a
merry joke, which helped the pleasantry.

"We may call that a 'white lie,'" he said; "but it is a peart lad, and
the air with which he told it is worth a cool hundred! Going at four
hundred dollars--four hundred," etc.

The bidding recommenced. The article rose in esteem, and Paul was
pushed from the block into the arms of a tall, angular person, who led
him into the city. That afternoon he was placed in a railway carriage,
and on the third night he was quartered in Mobile, at the dwelling of
his purchaser. The tall person proved to be the agent of a rich old
lady--a childless widow--who required a handsome, active lad, to wait
upon her person, and make a good appearance in the drawing-room.

She had many servants; but Paul was not compelled to associate with
them, and his duties were light, though menial. When his mistress went
out to walk, he must carry her spaniel in his arms. He must stand
behind her at dinner, wielding a fly-brush of peacock's feathers. He
must run errands, and be equally ready to serve her whims and satisfy
her wants. She was not harsh, but very petulant; and had Paul been
hasty or high-tempered, his lot might have been a bitter one. On the
contrary, he was quiet, docile, and bashful, and he pleased her
marvellously. If he sometimes wept for the happy past, or felt a
child's strong yearning for something to love, he hid his grief from
those about him, and sought that consolation which the world cannot
take away in the simple prayers he had conned from his mother. He was
a slave, but not a negro. His pleasures were not theirs, for he had
quick intelligence, and he shrank from their loud, lewd glee. Their
blood had thickened through generations of bondage, and trained in the
harness of beasts, they had become creatures of draught. His had
rippled bright and brisk through generations of freedom, and a year
could not drag him to their level. He had learned to read and write,
and it was his habit t