ir interest had
escaped from slavery.

It had been their intention to spend the coldest months at the South,
but a volcano had flared up all of a sudden at Harper's Ferry, and
boiling lava was rolling all over the land. Every Northern man who
visited the South was eyed suspiciously, as a possible emissary of
John Brown; and the fact that Mr. King was seeking to redeem a runaway
slave was far from increasing confidence in him. Finding that silence
was unsatisfactory, and that he must either indorse slavery or
be liable to perpetual provocations to quarrel, he wrote to Mr.
Blumenthal to have their house in readiness for their return; an
arrangement which Flora and her children hailed with merry shouts and
clapping of hands.

When they arrived, they found their house as warm as June, with Flora
and her family there to receive them, backed by a small army of
servants, consisting of Tulee, with her tall son and daughter, and
little Benny, and Tom and Chloe; all of whom had places provided
for them, either in the household or in Mr. King's commercial
establishment. Their tropical exuberance of welcome made him smile.
When the hearty hand-shakings were over, he said to his wife, as they
passed into the parlor, "It really seemed as if we were landing on the
coast of Guinea with a cargo of beads."

"O Alfred," rejoined she, "I am so grateful to you for employing them
all! You don't know, and never _can_ know, how I feel toward these
dusky friends; for you never had them watch over you, day after day,
and night after night, patiently and tenderly leading you up from the
valley of the shadow of death."

He pressed her hand affectionately, and said, "Inasmuch as they did it
for you, darling, they did it for me."

This sentiment was wrought into their daily deportment to their
servants; and the result was an harmonious relation between employer
and employed, which it was beautiful to witness. But there are
skeletons hidden away in the happiest households. Mrs. King had hers,
and Tom and Chloe had theirs. The death of Mr. Bell and the absence of
Mrs. Fitzgerald left no one in Boston who would be likely to recognize
them; but they knew that the Fugitive Slave Act was still in force,
and though they relied upon Mr. King's generosity in case of
emergency, they had an uncomfortable feeling of not being free. It was
not so with Tulee. She had got beyond Mount Pisgah into the Canaan of
freedom; and her happiness was unalloyed. Mr. K