face into his
hands.

"Now, my darlings, let mother be the daysman between you," said the
elder Mrs. Hartright, coming near carressing the young wife. "Benny
knows just to what extent he has wronged you my dear, and I believe him
honest enough and manly enough to acknowledge it, and sue for
forgiveness. I leave you to yourselves. God grant that you may be
enabled to peacably settle your difficulties satisfactorily to you both,
without giving license to Madame Gossip. God bless you." Kissing Emily,
Mrs. Hartright descended to her room.

Ben Hartright succeeded in patching up matters with his wife by
promising to live a more honest life, only to break it, which caused her
to make good her threat and leave him.

CHAPTER VI.

The Union Aid Society Holds a Meeting.

The home of Mrs. West was one of the many snug little cottages owned by
the colored inhabitants of that section of Wilmington known as "Camp
Land." It also had the distinction of facing Campbell Street, the main
thoroughfare of that portion of the city. Although Mrs. West knew
something of slavery as it existed in North Carolina, she was free born;
her grandfather having purchased his freedom, and afterwards that of the
rest of the family before her birth. The rule that the free Negro was a
shiftless being more to be pitied than envied by slaves, was not without
many exceptions in North Carolina. There were many Negroes in old North
Carolina who by grasping every opportunity to earn an extra dollar by
working for neighboring planters when their own tasks were done, and
making such useful articles as their genius could contrive, often after
years of patient toiling and saving would often astonish their masters
by offering to purchase their freedom. There were others who paid to
their masters annually a specified sum of money for their time, that
they might enjoy the control of their own affairs as much as possible.

For many years before the war my father did public carting in the town
of Fayetteville as a free-man, his master receiving a certain amount of
his earnings. Of course there were free Negroes whose conception of
freedom was a release from manual toil, and who like poor whites, lived
a shiftless indolent life, following the sunshine in Winter and the
shade in Summer.

Free Negroes in North Carolina had the right to purchase property and
enjoy other limited privileges. The parents of Mrs. West, known as
Burchers, emigrated to the West in