nes, and she told me she was dead. Oh I was
so sorry; and so before I got my dinner I hastened to Mammy's cabin, and
found poor Mammy almost heart-broken, and Agnes lying dead, but looking
just as natural as life."

"She was dead, but had left one of the dearest little babies I ever saw.
Why, Pa, he is just as white as we are; and I told Mammy so, but she
said it didn't matter; 'he is a poor slave, just like the rest of us.'
Now, Pa, I don't want Agnes' baby to be a slave. Can't you keep him from
growing up a slave?"

"How am I to do that, my little Abolitionist?"

"No, Pa, I am not an Abolitionist. I heard some of them talk when I was
in New York, and I think they are horrid creatures; but, Pa, this child
is so white, nobody would ever know that he had one drop of Negro blood
in his veins. Couldn't we take him out of that cabin, and make all the
servants promise that they would never breathe a word about his being
colored, and let me bring him up as a white child?"

"Well," said Mr. Le Croix, bursting into a hearty laugh, "that is a
capital joke; my little dewdrop talk of bringing up a child! Why,
darling, you would tire of him in a week."

"Oh no, Pa, I wouldn't! Just try me; if it is only for a week."

"Why, Sunbeam, it is impossible. Who ever heard of such a thing as a
Negro being palmed upon society as a white person?"

"Negro! Pa, he is just as white as you are, and his eyes are as blue as
mine."

"Still he belongs to the Negro race; and one drop of that blood in his
veins curses all the rest. I would grant you anything in reason, but
this is not to be thought of. Were I to do so I would immediately lose
caste among all the planters in the neighborhood; I would be set down as
an Abolitionist, and singled out for insult and injury. Ask me anything,
Camilla, but that."

"Oh, Pa, what do you care about social position? You never hunt, nor
entertain company, nor take any part in politics. You shut yourself up
in your library, year after year, and pore over your musty books, and
hardly any one knows whether you are dead or alive. And I am sure that
we could hide the secret of his birth, and pass him off as the orphan
child of one of our friends, and that will be the truth; for Agnes was
our friend; at least I know she was mine."

"Well, I'll see about it; now, get down, and let me finish reading this
chapter."

The next day Camilla went again to the cabin of Miriam; but the overseer
had set her to a task