, a righteous retribution. And they hope I may
never get over it."

"I pray you to take it more gently," I said; "they are very good
men, and wish you no harm. But they must have their own opinions; and
naturally they think them just."

"Then all their opinions are just wrong. They hope to see me go down,
to my grave. They shall not have that pleasure. I will outlive every
old John Brown of them. I did not care two cents to live just now.
Henceforth I will make a point of it. If I cannot fight for true freedom
any more, having ruined it perhaps already, the least I can do is to
give no more triumph to its bitter enemies. I will eat and drink, and
begin this very night. I suppose you are one of them, as you put their
arguments so neatly. I suppose you consider me a vile slave-driver?"

"You are very ill," I said, with my heart so full of pity that anger
could not enter; "you are very ill, and very weak. How could you drive
the very best slave now--even such a marvel as Uncle Tom?"

Firm Gundry smiled; on his lean dry face there shone a little flicker,
which made me think of the time when he bought a jest-book, published at
Cincinnati, to make himself agreeable to my mind. And little as I meant
it, I smiled also, thinking of the way he used to come out with his
hard-fought jokes, and expect it.

"I wish you were at all as you used to be," he said, looking at me
softly through the courage of his smile, "instead of being such a grand
lady."

"And I wish you were a little more like yourself," I answered, without
thinking; "you used to think always there was nobody like me."

"Suppose that I am of the same opinion still? Tenfold, fiftyfold, a
millionfold?"

"To suppose a thing of that sort is a little too absurd, when you have
shown no sign of it."

"For your own dear sake I have shown no sign. The reason of that is too
clear to explain."

"Then how stupid I must be not to see an atom of it!"

"Why, who would have any thing to say to me--a broken-down man, a fellow
marked out for curses, one who hates even the sight of himself? The
lowest of the low would shun me."

He turned away from me, and gazed back toward the dismal, miserable,
spectral desert; while I stood facing the fruitful, delicious, flowery
Paradise of all the world. I thought of the difference in our lots,
and my heart was in misery about him. Then I conquered my pride and my
littleness and trumpery, and did what the gentle sweet Eve might have
d