go."

"You don't say so! Wonders will never cease--and he such a gentleman, too!"
resumed her husband.

"Yes; and it's completely sickening," continued Mrs. Stevens, "to see them
together; he calls her my dear, and is as tender and affectionate to her as
if she was a Circassian--and she nothing but a nigger--faugh! it's
disgusting."

Little Clarence had been standing near, unnoticed by either of them during
this conversation, and they were therefore greatly surprised when he
exclaimed, with a burst of tears, "My mother is not a nigger any more than
you are! How dare you call her such a bad name? I'll tell my father!"

Mr. Stevens gave a low whistle, and looking at his wife, pointed to the
door. Mrs. Stevens laid her hand on the shoulder of Clarence, and led him
to the door, saying, as she did so, "Don't come in here any more--I don't
wish you to come into my house;" and then closing it, returned to her
husband.

"You know, George," said she, "that I went in to pay her a short visit. I
hadn't the remotest idea that she was a coloured woman, and I commenced
giving my opinion respecting niggers very freely, when suddenly her husband
called for a light, and I then saw to whom I had been talking. You may
imagine my astonishment--I was completely dumb--and it would have done you
good to have seen the air with which she left the room, after as good as
telling me to leave the house."

"Well," said Mr. Stevens, "this is what may be safely termed an unexpected
event. But, Jule," he continued, "you had better pack these young folks off
to bed, and then you can tell me the rest of it."

Clarence stood for some time on the steps of the house from which he had
been so unkindly ejected, with his little heart swelling with indignation.
He had often heard the term nigger used in its reproachful sense, but never
before had it been applied to him or his, at least in his presence. It was
the first blow the child received from the prejudice whose relentless hand
was destined to crush him in after-years.

It was his custom, when any little grief pressed upon his childish heart,
to go and pour out his troubles on the breast of his mother; but he
instinctively shrunk from confiding this to her; for, child as he was, he
knew it would make her very unhappy. He therefore gently stole into the
house, crept quietly up to his room, lay down, and sobbed himself to sleep.

CHAPTER XIII.

Hopes consummated.

To Emily Winston we have