pt with us until her prudence also might be relied upon. You must
acknowledge that as white persons they will be better off."

"I admit," answered Mr. Walters, "that in our land of liberty it is of
incalculable advantage to be white; that is beyond dispute, and no one is
more painfully aware of it than I. Often I have heard men of colour say
they would not be white if they could--had no desire to change their
complexions; I've written some down fools; others, liars. Why," continued
he, with a sneering expression of countenance, "it is everything to be
white; one feels that at every turn in our boasted free country, where all
men are upon an equality. When I look around me, and see what I have made
myself in spite of circumstances, and think what I might have been with the
same heart and brain beneath a fairer skin, I am almost tempted to curse
the destiny that made me what I am. Time after time, when scraping,
toiling, saving, I have asked myself. To what purpose is it all?--perhaps
that in the future white men may point at and call me, sneeringly, 'a
nigger millionaire,' or condescend to borrow money of me. Ah! often, when
some negro-hating white man has been forced to ask a loan at my hands, I've
thought of Shylock and his pound of flesh, and ceased to wonder at him.
There's no doubt, my dear sir, but what I fully appreciate the advantage of
being white. Yet, with all I have endured, and yet endure from day to day,
I esteem myself happy in comparison with that man, who, mingling in the
society of whites, is at the same time aware that he has African blood in
his veins, and is liable at any moment to be ignominiously hurled from his
position by the discovery of his origin. He is never safe. I have known
instances where parties have gone on for years and years undetected; but
some untoward circumstance brings them out at last, and down they fall for
ever."

"Walters, my dear fellow, you will persist in looking upon his being
discovered as a thing of course: I see no reason for the anticipation of
any such result. I don't see how he is to be detected--it may never occur.
And do you feel justified in consigning them to a position which you know
by painful experience to be one of the most disagreeable that can be
endured. Ought we not to aid their escape from it if we can?"

Mr. Walters stood reflectively for some moments, and then exclaimed, "I'll
make no farther objection; I would not have the boy say to me hereafter,
'