le, and thirsty, and "there was
nothing doing."

Now that broad cool verandah of Captain Brentwood's, with its deep
recesses of shadow, was a place not to be lightly spoken of. Any man
once getting footing there, and leaving it, except on compulsion, would
show himself of weak mind. Any man once comfortably settled there in an
easy chair, who fetched anything for himself when he could get any one
else to fetch it for him, would show himself, in my opinion, a man of
weak mind. One thing only was wanted to make it perfect, and that was
niggers. To the winds with "Uncle Tom's Cabin," and "Dred" after it, in
a hot wind! What can an active-minded, self-helpful lady like Mrs.
Stowe, freezing up there in Connecticut, obliged to do something to
keep herself warm,--what can she, I ask, know about the requirements of
a southern gentleman when the thermometer stands at 125 degrees in the
shade? Pish! Does she know the exertion required for cutting up a pipe
of tobacco in a hot north wind? No! Does she know the amount of
perspiration and anger superinduced by knocking the head off a bottle
of Bass in January? Does she know the physical prostration which is
caused by breaking up two lumps of hard white sugar in a pawnee before
a thunderstorm? No, she doesn't, or she would cry out for niggers with
the best of us! When the thermometer gets over 100 degrees in the
shade, all men would have slaves if they were allowed. An Anglo-Saxon
conscience will not, save in rare instances, bear a higher average heat
than 95 degrees.

But about this verandah. It was the model and type of all verandahs. It
was made originally by the Irish family, the Donovans, before spoken
of; and, like all Irish-made things, was nobly conceived, beautifully
carried out, and then left to take care of itself, so that when Alice
came into possession, she found it a neglected mine of rare creepers
run wild. Here, for the first time, I saw the exquisite crimson
passion-flower, then a great rarity. Here, too, the native
passion-flower, scarlet and orange, was tangled up with the common
purple sarsaparilla and the English honeysuckle and jessamine.

In this verandah, one blazing morning, sat Mrs. Buckley and Alice
making believe to work. Mrs. Buckley really was doing something. Alice
sat with her hands fallen on her lap, so still and so beautiful, that
she might then and there have been photographed off by some
enterprising artist, and exhibited in the printshops as "A