dark-eyed wife was a daughter of sunny Georgia.

Mrs. Tompkins was the only child of a wealthy Georgia planter. Mr. Tompkins had met her first in Atlanta, where he was spending the Winter with a class-mate, both having graduated at Yale the year before. Their meeting grew into intimacy, from intimacy it ripened into love. Shortly after the marriage of his daughter, his only child, the planter exchanged his property for more extensive possessions in Virginia, but he never occupied this new home. He and his wife were in New Orleans, when the dread malady, yellow-fever, seized upon them, and they died before their daughter or her husband could go to them.

Mr. Tompkins, a man who had always been opposed to slavery, thus found himself the owner of a large plantation in Virginia, and more than a hundred slaves. There seemed to be no other alternative, and he accepted the situation, and tried, by being a humane master, to conciliate his wounded conscience for being a master at all.

He and his only brother, Henry, had inherited a large and valuable property from their father, in their native State. His brother, like himself, had gone South and married a planter's daughter, and become a large slave-holder. He was a far different man from his brother. Naturally overbearing and cruel, he seemed to possess none of the other's kindness of heart or cool, dispassionate reason. He was a hard task-master, and no "fire-eating" Southerner ever exercised his power more remorselessly than he, and no one hated the Abolition party more cordially. But it is not with Henry Tompkins we have to deal at present.

It was near noon the day after the travelers reached Jerry Lycan's inn. Mrs. Tompkins sat on the piazza, looking down the road that led to the village. She was one of those Southern beauties who attract at a first glance; her eyes large, and dark, and brilliant; her hair soft and glossy, like waves of lustrous silk. Of medium height, though not quite so slender as when younger, her form was faultless. Her cheek had the olive tint of the South, and as she reclined with indolent grace in her easy chair, one little foot restlessly tapping the carpet on which it rested, she looked a very queen.

The Tompkins mansion was the grandest for many miles around, and the whole plantation bore evidence of the taste and judgment of its owner. There seemed to be nothing, from the crystal fountain splashing in front of the white-pillared dwelling to the vast fields of corn, wheat and tobacco stretching far into the back-ground, which did not add to the beauty of the place.

On the north were barns, immense and well filled granaries and stables. Then came tobacco houses, covering acres of ground. One would hardly have suspected the plain, unpretentious Mr. Tompkins as being the possessor of all this wealth. But his house held his greatest treasures—two bright little boys, aged respectively nine and seven years.

Abner, the elder, had bright blue eyes and the clear Saxon complexion of his father. Oleah, the younger, was of the same dark Southern type as his mother. They were two such children as even a Roman mother might have been proud to call her jewels. Bright and affectionate, they yielded a quick obedience to their parents, and—a remarkable thing for boys—were always in perfect accord.

"Oh, mamma, mamma!" cried Oleah, following close after his brother, and quite as much excited.

"Well, what is the matter?" the mother asked, with a smile.

"It's coming! it's coming! it's coming!" cried Oleah.

"He's coming! he's coming!" shouted Abner.

"Who is coming?" asked the mother.

"Papa, papa, papa!" shouted both at the top of their voices. "Papa is coming down the big hill on the stage-coach."

Mrs. Tompkins was now looking for herself. Sure enough there was the great, old-fashioned stage-coach lumbering down the hill, and her husband was an outside passenger, as the sky was now clear and the sun shone warm and bright. The clumsy vehicle showed the mud-stains of its long travel, and the roads in places were yet filled with water.

The winding of the coachman's horn, which never failed to set the boys dancing with delight, sounded mellow and clear on the morning air.

"It's going to stop! it's going to stop!" cried Oleah, clapping his little hands.

"It's going to stop! it's going to stop!" shouted Abner, and both kept up a frantic shouting, "Whoa, whoa!" to the prancing horses as they drew near the house.

It paused in front of the gate, and Mrs. Tompkins and her two boys hurried down the walk.

Mr. Tompkins' baggage had just been taken from the boot and placed inside the gate, and the stage had rolled on, as his wife and two boys came up to the traveler.

"Mamma first, and me next," said Oleah, preparing his red lips for the expected kiss.

"And I come after Oleah," said Abner.

Mr. Tompkins called to a negro boy who was near to carry the baggage to the house, and the happy group made their way to the great piazza, the two boys clinging to their father's hands and keeping up a torrent of questions. Where had he been? What had he seen? What had he brought home for them? The porch reached, Mrs. Tompkins drew up the arm-chair for her tired husband.

"Rest a few minutes," she said, "and then you can take a bath and change your clothes, and you will feel quite yourself once more."

The planter took the seat, with a bright-faced child perched on each side of him.

"You were gone so long without writing that I became uneasy," said his wife, drawing her chair close to his side.

"I had a great deal to do," he answered, shaking his head sadly, "and it was terrible work, I assure you. The memory of the past three weeks, I fear, will never leave my mind."

"Was it as terrible as the message said?" asked Mrs. Tompkins, with a shudder.

"Yes, the horrible story was all true. The whole family was murdered."

"By whom?"

"That remains a mystery, but it is supposed to have been done by one of the slaves, as two or three ran away about that time."

"How did it happen? Tell me all."

The little boys were sent away, for this story was not for children to hear, and Mr. Tompkins proceeded.

"We could hardly believe the news the dispatch brought us, my dear, but it did not tell us the worst. The roads between here and North Carolina are not the best, and I was four or five days making it, even with the aid of a few hours occasionally by rail. I found my brother's next neighbor, Mr. Clayborne, at the village waiting for me. On the way he told all that he or any one seemed to know of the affair. My brother had a slave who was half negro and part Indian, with some white blood in his veins. This slave had a quadroon wife, whom he loved with all his wild, passionate heart. She was very beautiful, and a belle among the negroes. But Henry, for some disobedience on the part of the husband, whose Indian and white blood revolted against slavery, sold the wife to a Louisiana sugar planter. The half breed swore he would be revenged, and my brother, unfortunately possessing a hasty temper, had him tied up and severely whipped—"

"Served the black rascal quite right," interrupted the wife, who, being Southern born, could not endure the least self-assertion on the part of a slave.

"I think not, my dear, though we will not argue the question. After his punishment the black hung about for a week or two, sullen and silent. Several friends cautioned my brother to beware of him, but Henry was headstrong and took no man's counsel. Suddenly the slave disappeared, and although the woods, swamps and cane-breaks were scoured by experienced hunters and dogs he could not be found. Three weeks had passed, and all thought of the runaway had passed from the