ympathy for your wrongs and sufferings."

Again she folded him in her arms, and they kissed and blessed each
other at parting. She gazed after him wistfully till he was out of
sight. "Alas!" murmured she, "he cannot be a son to me, and I cannot
be a mother to him." She recalled the lonely, sad hours when she
embroidered his baby clothes, with none but Tulee to sympathize with
her. She remembered how the little black silky head looked as she
first fondled him on her arm; and the tears began to flow like rain.
But she roused in a few moments, saying to herself: "This is all wrong
and selfish. I ought to be glad that he loves his Lily-mother, that he
can live with her, and that her heart will not be made desolate by my
fault. O Father of mercies! this is hard to bear. Help me to bear it
as I ought!" She bowed her head in silence for a while; then, rising
up, she said: "Have I not my lovely Eulalia? Poor child! I must be
very tender with her in this trial of her young heart."

She saw there was need to be very tender, when a farewell card was
sent the next day, with a bouquet of delicate flowers from Gerald
Fitzgerald.

CHAPTER XXXII.

The next morning after these conversations, Mrs. Blumenthal, who was
as yet unconscious of the secret they had revealed, was singing in the
garden, while she gathered some flowers for her vases. Mr. Bright, who
was cutting up weeds, stopped and listened, keeping time on the handle
of his hoe. When Flora came up to him, she glanced at the motion of
his fingers and smiled. "Can't help it, ma'am," said he. "When I hear
your voice, it's as much as ever I can do to keep from dancing; but if
I should do that, I should shock my neighbor the Deacon. Did you
see the stage stop there, last night? They've got visitors from
Carolina,--his daughter, and her husband and children. I reckon I
stirred him up yesterday. He came to my shop to pay for some shoeing
he'd had done. So I invited him to attend our anti-slavery meeting
to-morrow evening. He took it as an insult, and said he didn't need to
be instructed by such sort of men as spoke at our meetings. 'I know
some of us are what they call mudsills down South,' said I; 'but it
might do you good to go and hear 'em, Deacon. When a man's lamp's out,
it's better to light it by the kitchen fire than to go blundering
about in the dark, hitting himself against everything.' He said we
should find it very convenient if we had slaves here; for Northern