arched the house all over for you,
when you was gone, and they was mighty sassy; but we didn't mind that,
so they didn't ketch you. How did you get along? We was dreadfully
uneasy about you?"

Louis then told them of the kindness of the colored people, his
thrilling adventures, and hair-breadth escapes, and unfolded to them his
plans for the future.

Camilla listened with deep interest, and turning to Minnie, who had left
the peaceful sunshine of her mother's home to dwell in the midst of that
rough and rude state of society, she said, "I cannot help feeling sad to
see you exposing yourself to the dangers that lay around your path. The
few Southern women who have been faithful to the flag have had a sad
experience since the war. We have been ostracized and abused, and often
our husbands have been brutally murdered, in a number of instances when
they were faithful to the dear old flag. A friend of mine, who was an
angel of mercy to the Union prisoners, dressing their wounds and
carrying them relief, had a dear son, who always kept a Union flag at
home, which he regarded with almost religious devotion. This made him a
marked boy in the community, and during the war he was so cruelly
beaten, by some young rebels, that he never recovered, and colored women
who would wend their way under the darkness and cover of night to aid
our suffering soldiers, were in danger of being flogged, if detected,
and I understand that one did receive 75 lashes for such an offence, and
I heard of another who was shot down like a dog, for giving bread to a
prisoner, who said, 'Mammy, I am starving.' I think, (but I have no
right to dictate to you) had I been you, and my home in the North, that
I would have preferred staying there, where, to say the least, you could
have had pleasanter social relations. You and Louis are nearer the
white race than the colored. Why should you prefer the one to the
other?"

"Because," said Minnie, "the prejudices of society are so strong against
the people with whom I am connected on my mother's side, that I could
not associate with white people on equal terms, without concealing my
origin, and that I scorned to do. The first years of my life passed
without my knowing that I was connected with the colored race; but when
it was revealed to me by mother, who suddenly claimed me, at first I
shrank from the social ostracism to which that knowledge doomed me, and
it was some time before I was reconciled to the change