w you apart.' 'That's flattering,'
replied I, 'to be compared to a negro.' And I hurried away, being
impatient to make an early call upon your lady at the Revere House. I
don't suppose I should ever have thought of it again, if your present
conversation had not brought it to my mind."

"Do you know whether Mr. Bruteman sold those slaves after they were
sent back?" inquired Mr. King.

"There is one fact connected with the affair which I will tell you,
if you promise not to mention it," replied the young man. "The
Abolitionists annoyed grandfather a good deal about those runaways,
and he is nervously sensitive lest they should get hold of it, and
publish it in their papers." Having received the desired promise, he
went on to say: "Those slaves were mortgaged to grandfather, and he
sent orders to have them immediately sold. I presume Mr. Bruteman
managed the transaction, for they were his slaves; but I don't know
whether he reported the name of the purchaser. He died two months
ago, leaving his affairs a good deal involved; and I heard that some
distant connections in Mississippi were his heirs."

"Where can I find Captain Kane?" inquired Mr. King.

"He sailed for Calcutta a fortnight ago," rejoined Gerald.

"Then there is no other resource but to go to New Orleans, as soon as
the weather will permit," was the reply.

"I honor your zeal," said the young man. "I wish my own record was
clean on the subject. Since I have taken the case home to myself,
I have felt that it was mean and wrong to send back fugitives from
slavery; but it becomes painful, when I think of the possibility of
having helped to send back my own brother,--and one, too, whom I have
supplanted in his birthright."

* * * * *

When Mr. King returned to Northampton, the information he had obtained
sent a new pang to the heart of his wife. "Then he _is_ a slave!" she
exclaimed. "And while the poor fellow was being bound and sent back
to slavery, I was dancing and receiving homage. Verily the Furies do
pursue me. Do you think it is necessary to tell Mrs. Fitzgerald of
this?"

"In a reverse of cases, I think you would feel that you ought to be
informed of everything," he replied. "But I will save you from that
portion of the pain. It was most fitting that a woman should make the
first part of the disclosure; but this new light on the subject can be
as well revealed by myself."

"Always kind and considerate," she said.