"That isn't pride, Wilkins; it is meanness. A truly proud man would adopt the contrary course, I am sure; and so attach all his employees to himself, and to his interests."

"Ah! he never thinks of that. His negroes get better treatment than his clerks, by far; and there isn't a soul among them but what loves him dearly, and would die for him, I don't doubt, at any moment. So you see he can be kind, strange as it may seem."

"It is strange, Wilkins. Mr. Delancey is a man I cannot understand or appreciate. I don't think I like him at all."

"He certainly has done nothing to make you, my poor boy. His pride, for it is pride, renders him very disagreeable. If all the sin, which his harshness and indifference has caused in others, were laid up against him, 'twould make a mighty pile. There's a day of retribution coming for him, though."

As Wilkins spoke he bent forward, and rested his head on his hand, with a peculiar smile upon his lips.

"A day of retribution! What do you mean, Wilkins? Is there any trouble brooding for him?"

"All pride must have a fall," muttered Wilkins, as if to himself, while he gave the coals a vehement thrust. "Don't ask me anything more about it, Guly."

"But you have roused my curiosity," said Guly, looking up in surprise.

"If it isn't a secret, I would like to know more of what you mean."

"I mean a great deal, and would tell you sooner than any one else; but it would do you no good if I would tell you, which I can't, and so we'll say no more about it."

"Has Mr. Delancey any children?"

"Two--a son and a daughter; at least he _had_ a son."

"And did he die?"

"Oh, no; he fell in love with a poor but worthy girl, who has no doubt made him an excellent wife, or at least would have done so had it been in her power. Instead of taking his daughter-in-law to his heart and home, and making her what his wealth could have made her, with her worth and beauty, he met the whole affair with stern opposition, and after his son's marriage turned him from him with a curse, and disinherited him.

How the poor fellow has managed to live since, I can't imagine; for he had no profession, nor anything to live by but his wits. I heard once he had become reckless and dissipated, and had sworn vengeance on his unnatural father, but I've heard very little of him of late."

"This is shocking. A clerk can expect but little from such a father. Oh, horrible!"

"He is a man you will probably never know, however long you may live with him. Had it not been for the necessary contact my position in his employ brought us into, I should never have known him at all."

"And you believe he really deemed Arthur guilty to-day?"

"That is more than I can answer. Mr. Delancey is close with regard to money matters."

"My poor brother! Wilkins, promise me to do all you can for him. Oh! I know how much danger surrounds him. What can I, so young and feeble, do?

We two are all that is left our mother. Help me--I'm sure you will--to save him."

"I will, Guly--by my sworn love to you, I will. Sometime, my boy, when I may greatly need a friend to help me through a trouble or sorrow that is coming upon me--when those that know me may shun me--you, who love me, will be that friend. May I rely upon you?"

"Depend upon me?--yes, truly, Wilkins--in anything that's right."

Guly's heart was racked with more sorrowful anxiety for his brother than he could, or cared to, express; but in spite of his efforts to restrain them, the bright tears fell down his cheeks at Wilkins' kind words, and dropped upon the broad breast which supported him. Wilkins raised his hand, and wiped them away.

"Don't cry, Guly; your grief unmans me."

"Oh, Wilkins, how can I help it?"

Wilkins answered nothing, but drew the slight form closer in silent sympathy. The hours went on, and midnight still saw them sitting there together--the golden head upon the broad, kind breast, and the eyes of both looking thoughtfully into the coals.

CHAPTER XVII.

"She's beautiful, and therefore to be woo'd; She is a woman, therefore to be won."

Henry VI.

----"Bright The lamps shone o'er fair women and brave men; A thousand hearts beat happily; and when Music arose, with its voluptuous swell, Soft eyes looked love to eyes which spake again, And all went merry as a marriage bell."

Childe Harold.

Della sat in her large chair, before the dressing-glass, with her delicate feet buried in the rich softness of a velvet cushion; her hands were folded in her lap, and her eyes fixed upon Minny's face, which was clearly reflected in the mirror, as she stood behind her mistress, arranging the shining bands of long fair hair.

"Minny, how very, _very_ white you are! How came you to be so white, when your mother is the blackest slave papa owns?"

A scarlet flush rose to the quadroon's cheek.

"My father, Miss, was as white as your own."

"Were you born here, Minn?"

"My mother was in your father's service when she gave me birth, Miss Della. Will you have your bandeaux single or double for this evening?"

"Double, Minn, so the wreath can lie nicely in between; and make those braids as rich as possible. I wish to look my best to-night. You have always lived here since you were born, Minn?--was a baby when I was a baby?"

"Yes, my dear Miss, and my mother was your nurse; your own mother not liking to spoil her figure by nursing her child, you were put to my mother's breast. So mother tells me."

"Well, if you had been a white child, that would have made us foster-sisters, wouldn't it? That's the reason old Mag loves me so well.

I never knew of this before."

"It's something very common here, you know, Miss, for white children to have their foster-mothers among the slaves. Fashionable ladies always think it ruins their forms to have a child at the breast."

"Yes, I know, Minn; and I think it a very shameful practice, too. I never want to be a fashionable woman, if it is going to deprive me of performing a mother's holiest offices for my children. I'm sure after a child of mine had been reared at a black mother's breast I should feel they were black children, had black blood in their veins, and I never could feel right toward them again."

"You are one in a thousand, dear Miss Della; and such feelings are right, and good, and noble. But if you ever wish to be truly a mother to your children, don't marry a fashionable man, whose pride will be to show you off all the time in gay company, and who will be always fretting to keep your beauty good. It is such husbands that make bad mothers. A woman can't be a votary of fashion and a good mother."

"I never shall marry a fashionable man, Minny--you _know_ that; but when I _do_ marry I shall try and be a good, and true, and dutiful wife, nothing more. I haven't a taste for high life--that is, gay life, which has no heart in it. But, Minny, let's go back to you; I commenced about you; what made you change the subject, child?"

"Did I, Miss?"

"Yes. Who was your father, Minny?"

Minny's cheek lost it's flush, and became pale as death.

"I cannot tell you, Miss."