anything. You saw," continued he, "how silent she has been all tea time,
and yet she has been more interested in what you have been saying than in
anything that has transpired for months. Well, I suppose women will be so
sometimes," he concluded, applying himself to the warm cakes that had just
been set upon the table.

"Perhaps she is not well," suggested Mr. Winston, "I think she looks a
little pale."

"Well, possibly you may be right, but I trust it is only a temporary
lowness of spirits or something of that kind. Maybe she will get over it in
a day or two;" and with this remark the conversation dropped, and the
gentlemen proceeded to the demolition of the sweetmeats before them. And
now, my reader, whilst they are finishing their meal, I will relate to you
who Mr. Winston is, and how he came to be so familiarly seated at Mr.
Garie's table.

Mr. Winston had been a slave. Yes! that fine-looking gentleman seated near
Mr. Garie and losing nothing by the comparison that their proximity would
suggest, had been fifteen years before sold on the auction-block in the
neighbouring town of Savanah--had been made to jump, show his teeth, shout
to test his lungs, and had been handled and examined by professed negro
traders and amateur buyers, with less gentleness and commiseration than
every humane man would feel for a horse or an ox. Now do not doubt me--I
mean that very gentleman, whose polished manners and irreproachable
appearance might have led you to suppose him descended from a long line of
illustrious ancestors. Yes--he was the offspring of a mulatto field-hand by
her master. He who was now clothed in fine linen, had once rejoiced in a
tow shirt that scarcely covered his nakedness, and had sustained life on a
peck of corn a week, receiving the while kicks and curses from a tyrannical