into the kitchen. "I suppose you haven't
been to breakfast," said she, in a patronizing manner; "if you haven't, you
are just in time, as we will be done ours in a little while, and then you
can have yours."

Charlie silently followed her down into the kitchen, where a man-servant
and the younger maid were already at breakfast; the latter arose, and was
placing another plate upon the table, when Betsey frowned and nodded
disapprovingly to her. "Let him wait," whispered she; "I'm not going to eat
with niggers."

"Oh! he's such a nice little fellow," replied Eliza, in an undertone; "let
him eat with us."

Betsey here suggested to Charlie that he had better go up to the maple
chamber, wash his face, and take his things out of his trunk, and that when
his breakfast was ready she would call him.

"What on earth can induce you to want to eat with a nigger?" asked Betsey,
as soon as Charlie was out of hearing. "I couldn't do it; my victuals would
turn on my stomach. I never ate at the same table with a nigger in my
life."

"Nor I neither," rejoined Eliza; "but I see no reason why I should not. The
child appears to have good manners, he is neat and good-looking, and
because God has curled his hair more than he has ours, and made his skin a
little darker than yours or mine, that is no reason we should treat him as
if he was not a human being." Alfred, the gardener, had set down his
saucer and appeared very much astonished at this declaration of sentiment
on the part of Eliza, and sneeringly remarked, "You're an Abolitionist, I
suppose."

"No, I am not," replied she, reddening; "but I've been taught that God made
all alike; one no better than the other. You know the Bible says God is no
respecter of persons."

"Well, if it does," rejoined Alfred, with a stolid-look, "it don't say that
man isn't to be either, does it? When I see anything in my Bible that tells
me I'm to eat and drink with niggers, I'll do it, and not before. I suppose
you think that all the slaves ought to be free, and all the rest of the
darned stuff these Abolitionists are preaching. Now if you want to eat with
the nigger, you can; nobody wants to hinder you. Perhaps he may marry you
when he grows up--don't you think you had better set your cap at him?"

Eliza made no reply to this low taunt, but ate her breakfast in silence.

"I don't see what Mrs. Bird brought him here for; she says he is sick,--had
a broken arm or something; I can't imagine what us