As Ted suspected, the stranger was of Northern birth, which showed
itself in his accent and cold, proud bearing. He might have been thirty,
and he might have been more. His face did not show his age. His features
were regular, and his complexion pale as a woman's. His eyes were a
cross between blue and gray, with a look in them which made you feel
that they were reading your inmost secrets, and you involuntarily turned
away when they were fixed upon you. On this occasion he seemed colder
and prouder than usual, as he seated himself upon the stool in his
stateroom and looked about him,--not at any thing that was there, for he
did not see it, or think how small and uncomfortable his quarters were,
although recommended as one of the staterooms _de luxe_ on the boat. His
thoughts were outside, first on Mandy Ann,--not because of anything
about her personally. He had seen nothing except a woolly head, a dark
blue dress, and two black, bare feet and ankles, but because she was
Mandy Ann, bound slave of "ole Miss Harris, who lived in de clarin',"
and for that reason she connected him with something from which he
shrank with an indescribable loathing. At last he concluded to try the
narrow berth, but finding it too hard and too short went out upon the
rear deck, and taking a chair where he would be most out of the way and
screened from observation, he sat until the moon went down behind a
clump of palms, and the stars paled in the light of the sun which shone
down upon the beautiful river and the tangled mass of shrubbery and
undergrowth on either side of it.

At last the passengers began to appear one by one, with their cheery how
dye's and good mornings, and curious glances at this stranger in their
midst, who, although with them, did not seem to be one of them. They
were all Southerners and inclined to be friendly, but nothing in the
stranger's attitude invited sociability. He was looking off upon the