o a white mistress. This in the days of youth--the halcyon
days of her girlhood, in "Ole Varginny"--before she was transported
west, sold to Ephraim Darke, and by him degraded to the lot of an
ordinary outdoor slave. But her original owner taught her to read, and
her memory still retains a trace of this early education--sufficient for
her to decipher the script put into her hands.

She first looks at the photograph; as it is the first to come out of the
envelope. There can be no mistaking whose likeness it is. A lady too
conspicuously beautiful to have escaped notice from the humblest slave
in the settlement.

The negress spends some seconds gazing upon the portrait, as she does so
remarking,--

"How bewful dat young lady!"

"You am right 'bout dat, Phoebe. She bewful as any white gal dis nigga
ebber sot eyes on. And she good as bewful. I'se sorry she gwine leab
dis hya place. Dar's many a darkie 'll miss de dear young lady. An'
won't Mass Charl Clancy miss her too! Lor! I most forgot; maybe he no
trouble 'bout her now; maybe he's gone dead! Ef dat so, she miss _him_,
a no mistake. She cry her eyes out."

"You tink dar war something 'tween dem two?"

"Tink! I'se shoo ob it, Phoebe. Didn't I see dem boaf down dar in de
woodland, when I war out a-coonin. More'n once I seed em togedder. A
young white lady an' genl'm don't meet dat way unless dar's a feelin'
atween em, any more dan we brack folks. Besides, dis nigga know dey lub
one noder--he know fo sartin. Jule, she tell Jupe; and Jupe hab trussed
dat same seecret to me. Dey been in lub long time; afore Mass Charl
went 'way to Texas. But de great Kurnel Armstrong, he don't know
nuffin' 'bout it. Golly! ef he did, he shoo kill Charl Clancy; dat is,
if de poor young man ain't dead arready. Le's hope 'tain't so. But,
Phoebe, gal, open dat letter, an' see what de lady say. Satin it's been
wrote by her. Maybe it trow some light on dis dark subjeck."

Phoebe, thus solicited, takes the letter from the envelope. Then
spreading it out, and holding it close to the flare of the tallow dip,
reads it from beginning to end.

It is a task that occupies her some considerable time; for her
scholastic acquirements, not very bright at the best, have become dimmed
by long disuse. For all, she succeeds in deciphering its contents and
interpreting them to Bill; who listens with ears wide open and eyes in
staring wonderment.

When the reading is at length