truction. These attentions had not
borne their legitimate fruit, and she was still a widow
unconsoled,--hence Mrs. Flannigan's tears. The housemaid was a plump,
good-natured German girl, with a pronounced German accent. The presence
on washdays of a Bohemian laundress, of recent importation, added
another to the variety of ways in which the English tongue was mutilated
in Mr. Todd's kitchen. Association with the white women drew out all the
native gallantry of the mulatto, and Wellington developed quite a
helpful turn. His politeness, his willingness to lend a hand in kitchen
or laundry, and the fact that he was the only male servant on the place,
combined to make him a prime favorite in the servants' quarters.

It was the general opinion among Wellington's acquaintances that he was
a single man. He had come to the city alone, had never been heard to
speak of a wife, and to personal questions bearing upon the subject of
matrimony had always returned evasive answers. Though he had never
questioned the correctness of the lawyer's opinion in regard to his
slave marriage, his conscience had never been entirely at ease since his
departure from the South, and any positive denial of his married
condition would have stuck in his throat. The inference naturally drawn
from his reticence in regard to the past, coupled with his expressed
intention of settling permanently in Groveland, was that he belonged in
the ranks of the unmarried, and was therefore legitimate game for any
widow or old maid who could bring him down. As such game is bagged
easiest at short range, he received numerous invitations to tea-parties,
where he feasted on unlimited chicken and pound cake. He used to compare
these viands with the plain fare often served by aunt Milly, and the
result of the comparison was another item to the credit of the North
upon his mental ledger. Several of the colored ladies who smiled upon
him were blessed with good looks, and uncle Wellington, naturally of a
susceptible temperament, as people of lively imagination are apt to be,
would probably have fallen a victim to the charms of some woman of his
own race, had it not been for a strong counter-attraction in the person
of Mrs. Flannigan. The attentions of the lately discharged coachman had
lighted anew the smouldering fires of her widowed heart, and awakened
longings which still remained unsatisfied. She was thirty-five years
old, and felt the need of some one else to love. She was