ked outside while Bacchus made his
toilet.

"Phillis," said the old fellow, blandly, coming to the door, "I don't see
my ruffled shirt out here."

"High" said Phillis, "I laid your shirt with the rest; but I'll look. Here
it is," said she, pleasantly, "jest where I put it."

"Why, whar's the ruffles?"

"I cut 'em off," said Phillis; "you asked me to."

Bacchus got weak in the knees again, and had to sit down on the old chest.
Not a word escaped his lips; a deep sigh burst from the pent-up boiler of
his remorse. With an agonized countenance he seized a piece of rag which he
had used as a shaving towel, and wiped away a repentant tear. His soul was
subdued within him. He went to meeting, but declined officiating in any
capacity, pleading a pain in his stomach as an excuse. At dinner he found
it impossible to finish the remaining quarter of a very tough old rooster
Phillis had stuffed and roasted for him. At sundown he ate a small-sized
hoe-cake and a tin pan of bonnyclabber; then observing "That he believed he
was put into dis world for nothing but to have trouble," he took to his
bed.

Phillis saw that he would be more docile for the rest of his life; for a
moment, the thought of restoring the shirt to its original splendor
occurred to her, but she chased it away as if it had been a fox, and took
the greatest satisfaction in "having given the old fool a lesson that would
last him all the days of his life."

"To you, generous and noble-minded men and women of the South, I appeal, (I
quote the words of a late writer on Abolitionism, when I say,) Is _man_
ever a creature to be trusted with wholly irresponsible power? Can anybody
fail to make the inference, what the practical result will be?"[A] Although
she is here speaking of slavery _politically_, can you not apply it to
matrimony in this miserable country of ours? Can we not remodel our
husbands, place them under our thumbs, and shut up the escape valves of
their grumbling forever? To be sure, St. Paul exhorts "wives to be obedient
to their own husbands," and "servants to be obedient to their own masters,"
but St. Paul was not an Abolitionist. He did not take into consideration
the necessities of the free-soil party, and woman's _rights_. This is the
era of mental and bodily emancipation. Take advantage of it, wives and
negroes! But, alas for the former! there is no society formed for _their_
benefit; their day of deliverance has not yet dawned, and until its firs