with delight to the quick pattering of her feet, as
she tripped lightly through the hall, and up and down the long stairs. The
birds that sang about the windows were not more cheerful than herself, and
when Mr. Garie heard her merry voice singing her lively songs, as in days
gone by, he experienced a feeling of satisfaction at the pleasant result of
his acquiescence in her wishes. He had consented to it as an act of justice
due to her and the children; there was no pleasure to himself growing out
of the intended change, beyond that of gratifying Emily, and securing
freedom to her and the children. He knew enough of the North to feel
convinced that he could not expect to live there openly with Emily, without
being exposed to ill-natured comments, and closing upon himself the doors
of many friends who had formerly received him with open arms. The virtuous
dignity of the Northerner would be shocked, not so much at his having
children by a woman of colour, but by his living with her in the midst of
them, and acknowledging her as his wife. In the community where he now
resided, such things were more common; the only point in which he differed
from many other Southern gentlemen in this matter was in his constancy to
Emily and the children, and the more than ordinary kindness and affection
with which he treated them. Mr. Garie had for many years led a very retired
life, receiving an occasional gentleman visitor; but this retirement had
been entirely voluntary, therefore by no means disagreeable; but in the new
home he had accepted, he felt that he might be shunned, and the reflection
was anything but agreeable. Moreover, he was about to leave a place
endeared to him by a thousand associations. Here he had passed the whole of
his life, except about four years spent in travelling through Europe and
America.

Mr. Garie was seated in a room where there were many things to recall days
long since departed. The desk at which he was writing was once his
father's, and he well remembered the methodical manner in which every
drawer was carefully kept; over it hung a full-length portrait of his
mother, and it seemed, as he gazed at it, that it was only yesterday that
she had taken his little hand in her own, and walked with him down the long
avenue of magnolias that were waving their flower-spangled branches in the
morning breeze, and loading it with fragrance. Near him was the table on
which her work-basket used to stand. He remembered how