any personal consideration. He was going to walk about seven miles to meet his congregation. Mr. Morrisson asked him why he had not taken a mule or a horse. "Laws Mas'r," said Uncle Israel, "the horses done beat out with las' week's ploughin', an' de mules warn't made to be nuffin but a torment to black folks. Ole Uncle Cudjoe says he 'spects dat ar's what white folks buys um for."

"Well," said Phil, "get up behind, old gentleman, and I'll carry you as far as Cranmer, any how."

So we travelled along with this poor black preacher in the clerical skirts, sitting behind us on the foot-board.

The church at Cranmer was built on the slope of a beautiful smooth rounded hill, commanding a superb view of the surrounding country. Farms, amongst which was Oatlands, with its lake, and waving wheat-fields and majestic woods, lay at our feet, clear, bright, and beautiful, glowing with summer sunshine. The little church stood on the edge of the wood. Under the trees were "hitched" the horses of the congregation, stamping and whisking their tails-many of them with side-saddles. Around the church door stood the men, and about a hundred negroes, it being usual for the male part of the worshippers to stand in the Church-porch and gossip till the beautiful opening words of the American service, "The Lord is in His holy temple, let all the earth keep silence before Him," broke up their talk and they came clattering in together to their places.

Tyrell and Max were looking out for us, and helped us from the carriage.

"Well," said I to Max, "did Tyrell have his interview with Mr. Williams? What have you done?"

"Nothing," said he.. "The man is a deeper rascal than we took him for, and as to your friend Tyrell, Molly, he is a trump. One

does not often meet with fellows like Tyrell. There is only one thing to be done: we ought to getthe negroes out of harm's way, and I want Tyrell to decide on carrying them off at once, and let me take the risk, but he won't hear of it till everything else possible has been tried. You see he was born and bred in Virginia, and has a master's prejudices about this cursed slavery -the only point we don't agree upon."

Veronica, meanwhile, was getting a clearer account of what had passed from cousin Tyrell. A very few words served to tell her the state of the case; and as we sat waiting for the commencement of the service on the wooden benches of the primitive barnlike little building, where we could see the green woods waving through chinks in the unpainted rafters, as well as through the door and windows, she told me what she had gathered from our cousin.

Mr. Williams scoffed at the idea that his mother had intended to make a will, besides which, he denied that he or his mother, to his knowledge, had received any money from Uncle Christopher, or had given him any paper purporting to be a receipt for four hundred and sixty-nine dollars. He said it was all folly to imagine the negro had laid by such a sum.

After this Tyrell had been to see Jake Gibson, who said that Williams had been a long time in his debt for advances of cash and for his tavern score. He laughed at the notion of selling Aunt Saph and her children for six hundred dollars, as Tyrell proposed, saying, he wanted the woman for his cook, but if he wished to "pocket" them, the negro trader in Winchester would give him double that money. Veronica said par parenthèse, that she had never known negroes to be sold to a trader by good families in the neighborhood, except for some serious fault, but that death, debt, crime, and other causes, threw many into the hands of the soul-driver, lying on the look-out for them at Winchester, and that such people as Will Williams and Gibson, who had no characters to lose, were willing enough to convert human property when it fell into their hands, into money.

Uncle Christopher was sexton of the Cranmer Church, and Tyrell and Max had come early and questioned him about his money, amongst which Aunt Saph declared he had had two notes for a hundred dollars. He said that one of his young masters among the engineers at Harper's Ferry had told him it was hardly safe to keep his money wrapped in an old coat in the corner of the tent, and had proposed to get two hundred dollars changed into notes at the office of the superintendent of the railroad. This gentleman was now supposed to be in Baltimore. Tyrell had then asked Uncle Christopher if any white man had been present when he paid Mr. Williams, or if any white person in Fighterstown could identify the money.

But Christopher replied that till he gave it to his wife he had carried the notes about his person day and night, saying nothing to any body except to his young masters at Harper's Ferry, not wishing to have it known that he had cash to that amount about him.

"You are sure you showed the money to no white man, Uncle Christopher?"

"I never shown it Mas'r-yes-stay! My ole woman she asked Mas' Felix one day when he was to work up dar to count it over."

Tyrell was now on the watch for Mr. Felix, who he hoped would come to church, to ask him whether he remembered anything about this circumstance and could identify the money. Mr. Felix, however, did not come to Cranmer, and after waiting at the door till the service was half over, Max and Tyrell came in to the church and took their places amongst the congregation. After the service was ended Veronica and I both turned to Tyrell.

"What do you mean to do if you get up evidence that Mr. Williams has received and appropriated Uncle Christopher's money?"

"Nothing can be done, I fear, except to deepen my conviction that he's the meanest white man in the country. I may get evidence enough to convince me, for I would believe Uncle Christopher on his word in preference to half the members of Congress upon oath, but colored testimony is inadmissible against a white man; and besides, Miss Veronica, I wish to spare your cousin from being publicly prosecuted."

"But Sapphira and Uncle Christopher? How does Uncle Christopher bear it?" said I.

"I did not tell him the extent of my fears, he does not know that Gibson claims his family, but he takes the ill news as far as he knows it in the spirit of a Christian. He said to me, "The matter is safe an' right Mas' Jim, an' whar it ought to be. Whar de Lord says 'all right, Christopher,' I ain't gwine to say 'No, Lord, it's all wrong.' I leaves it in the hands of our kin' Heavenly Father, an' every other thing, thank de Lord I can put that too. The king's heart is as rivers of water, says the Scripture, an' He turneth it whithersoever He will. Just so if de Lord please he'll turn his heart and it shall be jus as it is best to be, I know dat mas'r."

"Oh! but will Aunt Saph be Jake Gibson's slave or be sold away down south? I never could bear that," said Veronica.

"No!" said Tyrell with energy. "These are not flush times with any of us, cousin Veronica, but I can afford to prevent that, and I will. The law receives no colored testimony against a white man, but the public will believe Uncle Christopher in preference to Mr. Williams. If I prove to my entire satisfation that Will Williams knowingly appropriated that poor black Christian's hard-earned notes, I shall confront him and charge him with his fraud, and if we can get white evidence enough to take the matter into court my father will threaten him with prosecution on the part of the heirs to the estate of your uncle. The law considers the earnings of the slave the property of his owner, and wrong done to Uncle Christopher is wrong done to his master. I think a threat like this from a man of such weight in our community as my father will bring Mr. Williams to his senses, and that he will sell me the negroes for a small advance on the original bargain of six hundred dollars, after which I shall run them off into a free State or send them for safe keeping to a friend in the District of Columbia. Jake Gibson may bring an action against me if he likes, but I doubt if the paper is valid upon which he might assert a claim, and I rather think that while he would dread an exposure in the court room, the public sentiment of the community would sustain me in any suit that could be brought between us before any court in Jefferson or Clarke Counties."

Tyrell paused a moment, and the flash in his fine eyes softened as he said: "There is one other consideration, and that is, if I should be driven to this necessity, what ought to be done with Uncle Christopher? If we send Aunt Saph and her two children beyond Gibson's reach must we separate him from his family?"

"No-no!" cried Veronica. "Why cannot he go too?"

"I must know by what authority. Who does he belong to?" said Tyrell.