no idea how it cuts me. This
state of things is producing a great change in my views. My prevailing
wish now is to obtain an independent position by my own exertions, and
thus be free to become familiar with my new self. At present, I feel
as if there were two of me, and that one was an impostor."

"I heartily approve of your wish to rely upon your own resources,"
replied Mr. King; "and I will gladly assist you to accomplish it. I
have already said you should be to me as a son, and I stand by my
word; but I advise you, as I would an own son, to devote yourself
assiduously to some business, profession, or art. Never be a gentleman
of leisure. It is the worst possible calling a man can have. Nothing
but stagnation of faculties and weariness of soul comes of it. But we
will talk about _your_ plans hereafter. The urgent business of the
present moment is to obtain some clew to your missing brother. My
conscientious wife will suffer continual anxiety till he is found. I
must go to New Orleans and seek out Mr. Bruteman, to ascertain whether
he has sold him."

"Bruteman!" exclaimed the young man, with sudden interest. "Was he the
one who seized that negro woman and the child?"

"Yes," rejoined Mr. King. "But why does that excite your interest?"

"I am almost ashamed to tell you," replied Gerald. "But you know I
was educated in the prejudices of my father and grandfather. It was
natural that I should be proud of being the son of a slaveholder,
that I should despise the colored race, and consider abolition a very
vulgar fanaticism. But the recent discovery that I was myself born a
slave has put me upon my thoughts, and made me a little uneasy about
a transaction in which I was concerned. The afternoon preceding Mrs.
Green's splendid ball, where I first saw my beautiful Rose-mother, two
fugitive slaves arrived here in one of grandfather's ships called 'The
King Cotton.' Mr. Bruteman telegraphed to grandfather about them, and
the next morning he sent me to tell Captain Kane to send the slaves
down to the islands in the harbor, and keep them under guard till a
vessel passed that would take them back to New Orleans. I did his
errand, without bestowing upon the subjects of it any more thought or
care than I should have done upon two bales of cotton. At parting,
Captain Kane said to me, 'By George, Mr. Fitzgerald, one of these
fellows looks so much like you, that, if you were a little tanned by
exposure to the sun, I shouldn't kno