ed; and throwing her trembling arms around his neck,
she sobbed out:

'Oh, massa Robert, ole nussy am happy now; she'll neber leff 'ou gwo
'way agin.'

Mrs. Preston shortly turned to lead the way into the house. As she did
so, I noticed peeping from out the folds of her dress, where she had
shyly hid away, a younger child, of strange and wonderful beauty. She
had not, like the others, the fair complexion and pure Grecian features
of her mother. Her skin was dark, and her hair, which fell in glossy
curls over her neck, was as black as the night when the clouds have shut
out the stars. Her cheeks seemed two rose leaves thinly sprinkled with
snow; her eyes, coals which held a smouldering flame. Her face was one
of those caught now and then by the old painters--a thing dreamed of,
but seldom seen: the pure expression of an ideal loveliness which is
more than human. She seemed some pure, spiritual being, which had left
its ethereal home and come to earth to make the world brighter and
better by its presence. I reached out my hands to her, and said:

'Come here, my little one. This is one I have not seen, Mrs. Preston.'

'No, sir; we have never taken her North; she is too young yet. Go to the
gentleman, my pet.'

The child came timidly toward me, and suffered me to lift her in my
arms:

'And what is your name, my little one?'

'Selly, sar,' she replied, with the soft, mellow accent, which the
planter's children acquire from the negroes.

'What an odd name!' I remarked,

'Yes, sir, it _is_ singular. Her full name is Selma,' replied her
mother.

'What! who have we here?' exclaimed Preston, as he turned away from the
negroes, and stepped up on the piazza.

'Why, Robert, it's Selly--don't you know your own child?'

Preston took the little girl in his arms, and said:

'It's like you, Lucy. No man ever had a wife like mine, Kirke.'

'No one but Mr. Kirke himself, you mean, Robert,' replied the lady,
smiling; then she added:

'Selly has been in Newbern for a time, Mr. Preston did not expect to
find her at home.'

We entered the house, and took seats in the drawing room to await
dinner. We had not been there long, when 'Master Joe' burst into the
apartment, and rushing up to me, exclaimed:

'Come, Mr. Kirke, Joe is outside; he wants to see you--come.'

'Tell Joe to wait; don't disturb Mr. Kirke now,' said his father,

'Oh no, Preston; let me see him at once;' and rising, I followed the lad
from the room.

J