ans and sell them. Instead, he was going to Ohio to give them their
freedom, and make provision for their future."

"What a wrong!" said Marie.

"Who was wronged?" said Leroy, in astonishment.

"Every one in the whole transaction," answered Marie. "Your friend
wronged himself by sinning against his own soul. He wronged his wife by
arousing her hatred and jealousy through his unfaithfulness. He wronged
those children by giving them the _status_ of slaves and outcasts. He
wronged their mother by imposing upon her the burdens and cares of
maternity without the rights and privileges of a wife. He made her crown
of motherhood a circlet of shame. Under other circumstances she might
have been an honored wife and happy mother. And I do think such men
wrong their own legitimate children by transmitting to them a weakened
moral fibre."

"Oh, Marie, you have such an uncomfortable way of putting things. You
make me feel that we have done those things which we ought not to have
done, and have left undone those things which we ought to have done."

"If it annoys you," said Marie, "I will stop talking."

"Oh, no, go on," said Leroy, carelessly; and then he continued more
thoughtfully, "I know a number of men who have sent such children North,
and manumitted, educated, and left them valuable legacies. We are all
liable to err, and, having done wrong, all we can do is to make
reparation."

"My dear husband, this is a wrong where reparation is impossible.
Neither wealth nor education can repair the wrong of a dishonored birth.
There are a number of slaves in this section who are servants to their
own brothers and sisters; whose fathers have robbed them not simply of
liberty but of the right of being well born. Do you think these things
will last forever?"

"I suppose not. There are some prophets of evil who tell us that the
Union is going to dissolve. But I know it would puzzle their brains to
tell where the crack will begin. I reckon we'll continue to jog along as
usual. 'Cotton fights, and cotton conquers for American slavery.'"

Even while Leroy dreamed of safety the earthquake was cradling its fire;
the ground was growing hollow beneath his tread; but his ear was too
dull to catch the sound; his vision too blurred to read the signs of the
times.

"Marie," said Leroy, taking up the thread of the discourse, "slavery is
a sword that cuts both ways. If it wrongs the negro, it also curses the
white man. But we are in it, and w