ying. She's young, and she's
handsome--handsome as a picture--and rich, and as good as an angel;
that's about what she is, if Sallie Howard and I know B from a bull's
foot."

"Who is Sallie Howard?" queried the Captain.

"She? O,"--very red in the face,--"she's a friend of mine, and she's
Miss Ercildoune's seamstress."

"Ercildoune? good name! Is she the _lady_ upon whom Surrey has been
bestowing his--?"

"Yes, she is; and here's her photograph. Sallie begged it of her, and
sent it to me, once after she had done a kind thing by both of us. Looks
like a 'nigger wench,' don't she?"

The Captain seized the picture, and, having once fastened his eyes upon
it, seemed incapable of removing them. "This? this her?" he cried.
"Great Caesar! I should think Surrey would have the fellow out at twenty
paces in no time. Heavens, what a beauty!"

Jim grinned sardonically: "She is rather pretty, now,--ain't she?"

"Pretty! ugh, what an expression! pretty, indeed! I never saw anything
so beautiful. But what a sad face it is!"

"Sad! well, 'tain't much wonder. I guess her life's been sad enough, in
spite of her youth, and her beauty, and her riches, and all the rest."

"Why, how should that be?"

"Suppose you take another squint at that face."

"Well."

"See anything peculiar about it?"

"Nothing except its beauty."

"Not about the eyes?"

"No,--only I believe it is they that make the face so sorrowful."

"Very like. You generally see just such big mournful-looking eyes in the
faces of people that are called--octoroons."

"What?" cried the Captain, dropping the picture in his surprise.

"Just so," Jim answered, picking it up and dusting it carefully before
restoring it to its place in his pocket-book.

"So, then, it is part true, after all."

"True!" exclaimed Jim, angrily,--"don't make an ass of yourself,
Captain."

"Why, Given, didn't you say yourself that she was an octoroon, or some
such thing?"

"Suppose I did,--what then?"

"I should say, then, that Surrey has disgraced himself forever. He has
not only outraged his family and his friends, and scandalized society,
but he has run against nature itself. It's very plain God Almighty never
intended the two races to come together."

"O, he didn't, hey? Had a special despatch from him, that you know all
about it? I've heard just such talk before from people who seemed to be
pretty well posted about his intentions,--in this particular
matter,--though I gene