and protection, and to prevent her son from
receiving any share of his father's property. By another Southern law,
that 'the child shall follow the condition of the mother,' her son
became a slave."

"Well, sir, what interest do you suppose I can take in all this?"
interrupted the merchant. "It's nothing to me, sir. The South is
competent to make her own laws."

Mr. King begged his attention a little longer. He then proceeded to
tell how Mr. Fitzgerald had treated the octoroon, at the time of his
marriage with Miss Bell; that he had subsequently sold her to a very
base man, in payment of a debt; that she, terrified and bewildered
by the prospect of such a fate, had, in a moment of frantic revenge,
changed her babe for his daughter's; and that consequently the Gerald
he had been educating as his grandson was in fact the son of the
octoroon, and born a slave.

"Really, sir," said Mr. Bell, with a satirical smile, "that story
might sell for something to a writer of sensation novels; but I
should hardly have expected to hear it from a sensible gentleman like
yourself. Pray, on whose testimony do you expect me to believe such an
improbable fiction?"

"On that of the mother herself," replied Mr. King.

With a very contemptuous curl of his lip, Mr. Bell answered: "And
you really suppose, do you, that I can be induced to disinherit my
grandson on the testimony of a colored woman? Not I, sir. Thank God, I
am not infected with this negro mania."

"But you have not asked who the woman is," rejoined Mr. King; "and
without knowing that, you cannot judge candidly of the value of her
testimony."

"I don't ask, because I don't care," replied the merchant. "The
negroes are a lying set, sir; and I am no Abolitionist, that I should
go about retailing their lies."

Mr. King looked at him an instant, and then answered, very calmly:
"The mother of that babe, whose word you treat so contemptuously, is
Mrs. King, my beloved and honored wife."

The old merchant was startled from his propriety; and, forgetful of
the gout in his feet, he sprung from his chair, exclaiming, "The
Devil!"

Mr. King, without noticing the abrupt exclamation, went on to relate
in detail the manner of his first introduction to Miss Royal, his
compassion for her subsequent misfortunes, his many reasons for
believing her a pure and noble woman, and the circumstances which
finally led to their marriage. He expressed his conviction that the
children had been c