roy's
white relations. In a short time strangers, distant relatives of her
husband, became frequent visitors at the plantation, and made themselves
offensively familiar. At length the dreadful storm burst.

Alfred Lorraine entered suit for his cousin's estate, and for the
remanding of his wife and children to slavery. In a short time he came
armed with legal authority, and said to Marie:--

"I have come to take possession of these premises."

"By what authority?" she gasped, turning deathly pale. He hesitated a
moment, as if his words were arrested by a sense of shame.

"By what authority?" she again demanded.

"By the authority of the law," answered Lorraine, "which has decided
that Leroy's legal heirs are his white blood relations, and that your
marriage is null and void."

"But," exclaimed Marie, "I have our marriage certificate. I was Leroy's
lawful wife."

"Your marriage certificate is not worth the paper it is written on."

"Oh, you must be jesting, cruelly jesting. It can't be so."

"Yes; it is so. Judge Starkins has decided that your manumission is
unlawful; your marriage a bad precedent, and inimical to the welfare of
society; and that you and your children are remanded to slavery."

Marie stood as one petrified. She seemed a statue of fear and despair.
She tried to speak, reached out her hand as if she were groping in the
dark, turned pale as death as if all the blood in her veins had receded
to her heart, and, with one heart-rending cry of bitter agony, she fell
senseless to the floor. Her servants, to whom she had been so kind in
her days of prosperity, bent pityingly over her, chafed her cold hands,
and did what they could to restore her to consciousness. For awhile she
was stricken with brain fever, and her life seemed trembling on its
frailest cord.

Gracie was like one perfectly dazed. When not watching by her mother's
bedside she wandered aimlessly about the house, growing thinner day by
day. A slow fever was consuming her life. Faithfully and carefully Mammy
Liza watched over her, and did all she could to bring smiles to her lips
and light to her fading eyes, but all in vain. Her only interest in life
was to sit where she could watch her mother as she tossed to and fro in
delirium, and to wonder what had brought the change in her once happy
home. Finally she, too, was stricken with brain fever, which intervened
as a mercy between her and the great sorrow that was overshadowing her
young li