LIFE IN A CITY.

SHAKESPEARE.

  YEARS passed away.Another scheme for the improvement of the colored race, that seemed at first more uncertain in its results, and more difficult in its execution than Mr. Peyton's plan of the farm, had been commenced in weakness, and fear, and doubt; but, by the mighty help of Him who can make the meanest of His creatures do an angel's work, this little seed, when first put into the ground, the smallest of all seeds, was developing—slowly, indeed, but with a growth more vigorous and healthy on that very account—into a mighty tree, whose overshadowing branches should shed their blessed influences over a whole continent.

  Steadily onward came the slowly-advancing le-

  Mr. Peyton had been from the first deeply interested in the great plan of colonization, so far-reaching and comprehensive in its design, and he had tried to excite the same feeling in those of his servants whom he thought best fitted for liberty; but, as far as Ben and Clara were concerned, his labors were ineffectual.

  A true type of many of their race, they would gladly have been free, if they had been allowed to exchange their easy, comfortable mode of life in the household of a Virginia planter for the greater variety and more easily obtained pleasures that would be afforded them in a city. A love of finery was also, in common with many other half-civilized people, one of their strongest passions, and the better opportunity they would have of obtaining and displaying it had no slight influence upon them. But a desire for freedom, for its own sake, was too abstract and intangible a motive to affect them.

  Mr. Peyton was unwilling to expose their facile dispositions and unstable principles to the tempta-

  At length an epidemic, often fatal, and generally supposed to be contagious, came, making its insidious progress through the land, and at one time every member of Mr. Peyton's immediate family lay struck down by the simoon of its breath. His mother and two of his children died, and only by the most assiduous nursing were the lives of the rest saved. Keziah, for whose assistance then many a wish was breathed, was far away, and the charge of the sick devolved on Clara and aunt Abby.

  Clara's slow, gentle movements, her soft, light touch, and sympathizing manner, made her a great favorite at the sick-bed, and for many days she was in constant request. And yet her affectionate nature never grew weary, and she complied with the fretful wish of the convalescent with the same uncomplaining patience that she had displayed while they lay in the shadow of death.

  "Is it still your wish to go to Philadelphia to live?" asked Mr. Peyton, when the family were able to leave their chambers, and dispense with their gentle nurse.

  "Yes, mas'r; Ben and me would like to go very much, if you would let us," was the reply.

  "Yes," said he, "you may go, if it is your wish;

  "I shall go, as usual, to the North this summer," he continued, "and I will see if I can find a suitable situation for you among my acquaintances there."

  "Can Americus go with us?" asked Clara.

  "What! your brother? No, I think not," replied Mr. Peyton.

  But Clara urged the matter with so much earnestness, that Mr. Peyton, his heart softened by his bereavements, felt unable to resist her plea for her only brother, a boy some years younger than herself, whom she loved with unusual warmth. He granted the request, on the condition that they should all remain with him one year longer. This he did, partly to see if their affection would bear the trial of self-denial and delay, and still more that he might train them more effectually for a state of independence. His first effort had shown him how much labor and patience were required for this purpose, and he now proceeded with more caution.

  Ben and Clara readily acceded to this condition. Clara would have remained three times as long

  The course of the next year saw them fairly established in Philadelphia; Ben as a coachman in a gentleman's family in Walnut Street, with twenty dollars a month, Americus as waiter in another with fifteen, and Clara and her little girl in a house in South Street, where she was installed mistress of two rooms and a pump, with a coal cooking-stove in the kitchen, which nearly burned her fingers off, and drove her to the verge of distraction, before she learned how to manage it.

  The next summer, when Mr. Peyton was passing through Philadelphia on his way farther North, he stopped for a day or two, that he might inquire after his freedmen. After dinner, on the first day of his arrival, Mrs. Peyton proposed a walk up Chestnut Street, to call upon some old friends.

  It was early in the summer, before the streets get the deserted look, and the persons sauntering through them the faded, languid appearance they wear later in the season. Every thing was bright and gay; the streets were thronged with ladies in their fresh and delicate summer attire; airy robes were floating, dainty little boots glancing in and out, and bonnets, cloud-like in their translucent lightness, were decked with exquisite bouquets,

  "What an elegantly-dressed lady that is before us!" said Virginia; "just notice in what perfect keeping every part of her dress is; that light, stone-colored silk, and white crape shawl, and tasteful white bonnet. I think I shall take her for my model. You know sister Julia wished me to bring her a fashionable shawl and bonnet, and I do not see any thing that pleases me so well. But how fantastically she has dressed that little child of hers!"

  "It is the fashion, I presume," replied Mr. Peyton; "I have observed that they all look very much alike."

  A stylish carriage came rolling down the street. "Look, Charles!" exclaimed Virginia, "there is Ben on the box."

  The lady in front of them bowed. Ben smiled in return with an expression of familiar pleasure, and then, catching sight of his old master, his look changed to a whimsical mixture of delight and discomfiture. Pleasure at seeing those he liked so well, and that they should see his wife too, arrayed in her best, and doubt as to their approval of her manner of disposing of their funds, were about equally balanced. He had only time, however, to

  "Oh, Mast'r Charles, I am so glad to see you!" she exclaimed.

  "Clara! is it possible!" said Mr. and Mrs. Peyton in a breath. "Why, Clara, how fine you look!" continued Mrs. Peyton; "I have been admiring your dress for the last two squares. And this is your little Madge, is it? I should never have recognized her."

  There was, indeed, a great metamorphosis. She had been a round, chubby, laughing little thing, dressed in a simple checked frock, and, except in the coldest weather, running about barefooted; and now she was thin and sickly-looking, with a closely-fitting frock that came hardly to her knees, and stockings drawn tight over her slender limbs, yet leaving them partly exposed; while gray boots, and a gipsy hat, with long blue streamers, completed her attire.

  A consciousness that the surprise shown by her old master and mistress was not one of entire pleasure, prevented Clara from feeling perfectly at her ease. Yet she could not find it in her heart to be wholly sorry for the untimely meeting. She had often thought, when surveying herself in the glass

  "If mast'r or mistr'ss could see me now, wouldn't they be astonished?"

  And astonished they were, even more so than Clara had anticipated.

  "I thought Clara had more sense than to dress herself in that unsuitable way. I am sure Ben's wages can not support her long in that style. I must talk to her about it," said Virginia, as, after a warm greeting, they passed on.

  "I wonder how this will end," said Mr. Peyton, musingly. "Judging by appearances, I am afraid I shall find I have made another great mistake. I will speak to Ben, and give him a little advice about his affairs."

  Mrs. Peyton found Clara the next day, neatly and suitably attired, and busy with her sewing. She was alone, for Madge was at school, she said. "What is she studying?" asked Mrs. Peyton. Among a long list of studies, Clara mentioned music.

  "Why are you having her taught music?" asked Mrs. Peyton; "will it ever be of any use to her?" "Yes, mistr'ss, I think it will. A friend of mine, Miss Amanda Fitzwalter (and Clara, in her simplicity, showed evident symptoms of gratified pride in numbering Miss Fitzwalter among her friends)

  On giving her a little advice, and a gentle reproof as to her style of dress, Clara answered meekly that she had earned it all herself, excepting the shawl, which Americus had given her. The families her husband and brother were engaged in kept her supplied with needle-work.

  "But have you laid by any thing, in case you or Ben should be taken sick?" asked Mrs. Peyton.

  "Laws no, mistr'ss!" said Clara, with a wondering shake of her head; "me and Ben's never sick. White ladies think so much of gettin' sick! I never see one that they don't talk to me about it; but I don't know what it is."

  "You may know one of these days, Clara," said Mrs. Peyton, rather severely, for Clara's flippancy had struck her disagreeably; but remembering her patient nursing, she went on to talk to her more plainly, and urge upon her the duties of economy and of desires suited to her position.

  Clara listened without replying, but it was easy to see that her thoughts were wandering.

  She was examining with a practiced eye Mrs. Peyton's simple yet elegant dress. At last, when

  While she was gone Virginia glanced round the room. It looked very neat and comfortable. The floor was covered with a nice carpet; there was a handsome sofa, and a bureau with a swing mirror, a marble-topped table, a few chairs, some gay colored engravings, framed and hanging about the room, with the portrait of a solemn-looking colored clergyman, in a white cravat and spectacles, with one hand resting on the Bible, and the other grasping a manuscript sermon; a few china ornaments over the mantle-piece completed the furniture and adornments of the parlor. A hasty examination of the kitchen, the door to which Clara had left open, showed the same orderly arrangement. The floor, the windows, the dresser, and the tables, in short, every thing that ought to be clean and bright, were spotlessly white. Mrs. Peyton remembered that the well-scoured appearance of the steps and pavement had struck her as she had entered the house.

  Clara was very much pleased with the change in the tone of the conversation, and showed to her sometime mistress with no little pride all her comfortable household arrangements, told her how much Ben was liked in Mr. Westcott's family, and how well Americus was getting along. She expatiated on the comfort it was to her that they could all go to church together almost every Sunday, and hear so fine a preacher as Mr. Wiley, the man over the mantle-piece.

  Mrs. Peyton listened with amused interest to Clara's artless confidences; it was impossible to keep up even the show, much less the reality of displeasure, against one so thoroughly good-humored.

  "Then you like every thing here very much?" asked Virginia, as Clara stopped for a few moments in her outpourings.

  "Yes, mistr'ss, 'deed I do; it is even better than I thought it would be; and I have so many friends"—

  She was interrupted by the opening of the door, and a little black woman, round, plump, and consequential, with her chin thrown up in the air by the

  "This is Miss Amanda Fitzwalter," said Clara, in some embarrassment, while Miss Amanda calmly seated herself.

  "Ah! the friend you were speaking about," said Mrs. Peyton.

  "Yes, mistr'ss," replied Clara.

  "Oh!" said Amanda, with a shake of the head and an upward look,

  This outburst took Mrs. Peyton by surprise, but she soon saw that it was only intended for effect; Miss Amanda having picked up those four lines somewhere, evidently thought this a good opportunity to display them. They were clearly not intended as an insinuation against Clara, who listened to her oracle in simple admiration, and with a blind belief in her that made Mrs. Peyton a little indignant as well as amused.

  "I encountered Mr. Peyton a few moments ago," continued Miss Fitzwalter, addressing Clara, while Virginia wondered how she knew her husband, "and he reminded me that this evening is the last meeting for the season of the Philomathean Society, and

  "It is Americus, mistr'ss," said Clara; "he belongs to a society that meets in the evening and makes speeches. He speaks most elegant, they all say."

  "What do they speak about?" asked Mrs. Peyton.

  "'Most every thing, 'specially poetry and politics," replied Clara.

  "Lately," observed Amanda, with her calm and measured propriety of utterance, "they have been debatin' on Foreign and Domestic Poetry. To-night the subjec' is, 'Which is the finest poet of Human Nature, Byron or Shelley?'"

  Mrs. Peyton hardly knew whether to laugh or be indignant at the absurdity of the whole affair, and Miss Fitzwalter's pompous manner. She was almost ready to believe that the colored race were, as she had often heard, incapable of taking care of themselves, when she saw those to whom so much had been given—such careful, early training, so much religious instruction, and at last liberty—thus wasting their time and opportunities. When they might be vindicating their right to freedom, and also the capability of their race to appreciate and enjoy that precious boon, they were wasting their energies on every pursuit that could gratify their

  Soon afterward, two or three more of Clara's friends entering, all handsomely dressed, and looking as though they had come to make a formral morning call, Mrs. Peyton took her leave.

  When Virginia told Mr. Peyton the particulars of her visit, and the impression she had received from it, he did not agree with her as to the entire folly of the Philomathean Society.

  "It is certainly better," said he, "than many other ways of passing their leisure evenings, and it shows some desire for intellectual improvement, and some power of application, for they must read and study to be able to make any speech at all. Byron and Shelley are not, to be sure, likely to be of any great use to them, nor will their studies of poetry bring about any practical result, I presume; still, there is a decided advance where mental enjoyments take the place of other pleasures. I met Americus a little while ago, 'encountered him,' as Miss Fitzwalter would say, and he is really very much improved in appearance; he has quite a stylish air, and seemed delighted with his new mode of life."

  The next evening, Ben, Americus, Clara, and little Maggie came to report themselves to their old master. Mr. Peyton was very glad to see them so happy, and apparently so prosperous. He gave

  Americus looked a little confused when Mrs. Peyton asked him about the success of his speech. Ben answered for him.

  "It went off most beautiful, mistr'ss; it's 'most a pity Americus ain't a preacher—he speaks so well. He's got all the big words ready for just when he wants 'em."

  "Which side did you take?" asked Mrs. Peyton.

  "Why, ma'am," said Americus, "Miss Mary, Mr Patterson's daughter, told me that Shelley was an atheist, so, of course, I would not uphold him. I took Byron's side."

  "Yes, mas'r," said Ben, "he spoke 'most an hour without stopping a minute. I never see how the words did come out of his mouth. I went sound asleep, for I was mighty tired—I'd been out till morning almost for three or four nights, driving the family home from parties—and when I woke up he was going on just the same."

  And honest Ben seemed to take as much pride in his brother-in-law's achievements as if they were his own.

  Mr. Peyton was gratified to find them so pleasantly situated. They went regularly to church, they told him; and little Madge went to Sunday school, as well as day school. If they had shown more forethought and prudence, more of Nathan's or Keziah's spirit, he would have felt fewer misgivings about them; but knowing the difficulties they had to contend against, and pleased to find they had fallen into no bad habits, he left them, hoping that his advice would have some effect, though he hardly ventured to expect it.

  But their life was not all sunshine; and there were times when they wished themselves back under Mr. Peyton's protection, when occasionally the mighty arm of the law was found unable to resist the aggressions of the strong against the weak. Belonging to a race almost universally considered inferior, regarded as the pariahs of society, even when in outward forms justice was done to them, the spirit with which its enactments was carried out was often so oppressive, that they derived but little satisfaction from its decrees; and obliged to live apart, to eat apart, to enjoy themselves apart, and to come by themselves to that blessed sacrament in which believers declare that they are "one in Christ," while every attempt to put themselves on even a temporary level with those more favored is so jealously guarded against and resisted, it is

  Not long after Mr. Peyton left Philadelphia, there was an anti-slavery fair held there, and great feeling was aroused in consequence in relation to that much-vexed subject. In addition to this, an old feud between the lowest class of laborers and the colored race had broken out afresh in the suburbs of the city. All the watchfulness of the police was insufficient to prevent the perpetration of acts of fearful violence, in which the blacks were almost invariably the sufferers rather than the aggressors. Americus had often seen a living proof of the savage ferocity with which these quarrels were carried on, in the person of a colored man, whom age and misfortune rendered venerable, standing it the corner of a street, with his tall athletic figure erect and motionless, his head bald and exposed to the cold winds, his sightless eyes touching every tender heart with painful pity. Though for years he might be seen standing in the same spot, the charity of the passers-by never failed to him, for it could asily be seen that he was no common beggar.

  He had been many years before a maker and mender of shoes in a very humble way, and was so

  One night, after he and all his family had retired to rest, a gang of ruffians forced their way into his room, and while his wife and children were calling in vain for mercy and help, they made him blind for life.

  Americus had often pitied and relieved him, and now, when the same state of feeling was showing itself, though not excited to an equal pitch of exasperation, he trembled lest a similar fate, or one even worse, might befall him or those dear to him. It

  His heart misgave him as she turned into Tenth Street, and continued walking for some distance in a southerly direction, and still more as the fire-bell had been pealing forth its summons for some time, its strokes indicating that the engines were needed in that part of the city. It had ceased ringing a few minutes before the lady had set forth on her homeward way, and they were passed by one engine after another clattering over the pavement on their return, with the usual noisy and shouting accompaniment of men and boys.

  They passed quickly along, and Americus was in hopes that the rest of their way might be pursued without interruption, when suddenly strange and

  The lady turned hastily to Americus, who was at a little distance behind her, and bade him come nearer.

  "Some of the fire companies must be engaged in a fight," said she; "we had better turn into the next street."

  But before they had time to do this, the combatants came rushing around the corner, shouting, fighting, and struggling in the most inextricable confusion. Some of the foremost of the crowd caught sight of the lady and Americus, and with a savage yell they sprang toward them.

  The lady ran up the steps of the nearest house, I the door of which was opened, as soon as she reached it, by the inmates, who had seen the disturbance, and were eager to afford her a refuge. They did not observe Americus, or were afraid to keep the door open longer, for it was closed as he approached it, and he was obliged to face the excited mob, whose passions having dethroned their conscience and overpowered their reason, now possessed the whole mass, and led them on to deeds that seemed rather the instinctive acts of ferocious and destructive animals than those of rational beings.

  No one stopped to ask the cause of the onset on the unoffending man, still less to question its justice, and before he had time to collect his thoughts, Americus found himself the centre of the tumultuous crowd, and the recipient of blows and thrusts that fell upon him like a shower of hailstones. He was pushed down and trampled upon several times, and as often rose, terror and desperation rendering him hardly conscious of the injuries he received, and pressed his way through the throng.

  Unfortunately, he happened to be particularly well-dressed that night, and there was not an article of his apparel, from his carefully tied cravat own to his brightly polished boots, that did not cost rim several severe bruises from the jealous mob. At length, with his clothes torn and hanging in ribbons around him, without his hat, and with but one boot, he found himself in a part of the crowd too busy settling their private quarrels, as to the superiority of their respective engines, to concern themelves about him.

  Slipping unobservedly through them, while cries of "Stop the nigger! Stop him!" were shouted in vain to combatants engaged in their own disputes, he reached at last the corner of the street. To run hastily round it, and take refuge in an oyster cellar near by, kept by an acquaintance of his, was the work of a moment.

  He went in expecting to receive the attention his bruises and other injuries required; but instead of that he soon found himself busy in assisting and comforting others; for lying stretched on a couch hastily prepared in the cellar was its proprietor, in a state of profound insensibility. The blood slowly trickling from some wounds in his face and hands alone showed that he was still alive.

  "How did this happen?" asked Americus.

  "You know Joshua Mason's people?" asked the wife of the injured man.

  "Very well," was the reply.

  "Well, you see, they was a goin' to give a dance, and we had been invited, but we couldn't very well go; and they wanted John to send the isters, and John he got them all ready; he cooked them his own self, the very last he'll ever cook, I'm afraid; and then he said, as there wa'n't much business a doin' to-night, he'd take them round himself, and see how they came on, and our little Alfred went with him; and he says, that just after they got into Myamensing, a whole gang of Killers and Bouncers, and all them rowdy fellers, ran out from some alley and tried to get the isters away from John; but John he held on, and called for the p'lice as loud as he could; then they all rushed on him, and some had knives in their hands, and Alfred couldn't see 'zactly how it was; but he saw a little feller creep

  The poor woman sobbed piteously as she finished simple story. Her apprehensions proved to be well founded, for her husband never recovered from the injuries he received that night. Yet the perpetrators of that lawless act of violence, though living in the midst of a law and order-loving community, were never discovered nor brought to justice.

  It is a true remark of some modern writer, that no barbarians, not even the Goths and Vandals of former times, are so reckless, and fierce, and destructive in their habits as the savages of civilization.

  Growing up under the shadow of Christian churches, but unsummoned by their bells; living amid people refined and educated, but who avoid all intercourse with them, as if there were contamination in their approach; thus debarred from their earliest cry from all good influences, and shut up to the teachings of riot and intemperance, and fraud and poverty, that debases where it does not purify, it is but the legitimate working out of the dark problem that such means applied to such natures should produce the results that are read of daily in the purlieus of all large cities.

  The Saxon has not the indolent and docile nature of the African, but with strong passions and insatiate desires, he has mighty energies to incite them to activity, and a resolute will that hangs on to its prey with unyielding pertinacity. These qualities, so powerful when directed to any good purpose, are equally so when urging their possessors forward in the downward path, or rather, as one restraint after another drops off, they seem to gain, as they descend, in adroitness in planning and energy in executing their reckless schemes.

  If the lazy philanthropists, who give a small share of their income to advance the cause of Christ, and then settle down under the complacent impression that they have done all that is required, and may fairly claim the epithet of benevolent, were but once to wake up and realize how much more good a little activity of the spirit and a little personal influence would do than all their money, they might soon clear the crowded haunts of men from those who, in the hot blood of their youth, waste their energies and degrade their souls by deeds of violence and shame. If the pious and high-minded would but know and employ the almost divine power they possess of uplifting, by their more elevated nature, the lower spirits to a purer sphere, how much might they accomplish!

  The state of things which has been described

  Americus reached his home safely, and was so kindly nursed that he soon recovered from the injuries he received. Thankful for his escape, he had no desire to punish those who had so wantonly attacked him. His only feeling toward them was a prudent desire to avoid any other encounter with them in any way. When Mr. Patterson told him that some of the rioters were taken up, and that if he went to the magistrate's office he might identify those who had assaulted him, he showed such reluctance to taking the step that Mr. Patterson did not press it upon him.

  The lady in whose service he had met this danger called to inquire after him, and sent him a present, which consoled him for his sufferings. Not long afterward, Mr. Patterson deciding to go to Paris to reside for some time, Americus gladly consented to accompany the family there, as he told Clara he had heard that "distinctions of color were unknown in that land."

  For two or three years all went smoothly with Ben and Clara, to whose family a little Charley had

  But the time of trial came at last, as it surely does come in the life of every human being. If the waters of prosperity make the plants grow rank, and full of leaves and blossoms when fruit and seed may be looked for, then is adversity commissioned, with her unsparing fires, to extirpate every root and branch that has left unfulfilled the gracious purpose for which it was appointed.

  A few weeks of unusually variable weather in early winter, of warm, spring-like days, alternating with chilling rains and gusts of snow and sleet, during which Ben was more exposed than usual, laid him up with the inflammatory rheumatism in the midst of the season. Mr. Westcott, whose family were among the gayest and most fashionable in the city, was obliged to engage another coachman to supply Ben's place, though he promised to em-

  But this Ben was unwilling to do, neither would Clara consent that he should leave her. Laying aside all the follies and fripperies on which she had wasted so much time, and thought, and money, she sold her finery, stopped Maggie's music lessons, with a sigh it must be confessed, and set her to taking care of the baby, while in a sixpenny wrapper she seated herself, like the devoted wife she really was, by the bedside of her suffering husband, and sewed day and night, till her dazzled eyes could hardly discern the needle in her wearied fingers.

  But there is nothing more dispiriting than to try to make up for wasted time by crowding into one hour the work of three. Each moment brings with it its own duties and its peculiar privileges, and, passing on with no human relentings, leaves behind it a blessing or a curse, as these have been performed and enjoyed, or neglected and unreceived.

  Besides, it was a heavy task to fall upon one woman, to support with her unassisted fingers a

  But as Ben's disease refused to yield either to time or medical remedies, and the strong man lay helpless as a child day after day, and month after month, their friends grew weary of helping them, and fell away one by one, till even Amanda Fitzwalter, who had proved, by her constant sympathy, that her heart was at least equal to her vanity, said "She didn't know what was to be done. Things was gettin' worse every day, and with three chillun of her own she didn't see her way clar to do much more. It was hard times just now, but if Clara could scrouge along a little while, perhaps they'd mend."

  The liberality of the poor to each other would surprise any one unacquainted with the fact. If it had not been for the sympathy and kindness of those hardly one degree better off than herself, Clara could not have borne up so long as she did under the troubles coming upon her.

  At length Ben began slowly to recover, and when reduced to their last crust, with not a cent in their possession to buy food for their almost naked chil-

  Neither his principles nor his disposition fitted him to meet this emergency, and for the first time in his life he went home reeling with intoxication; having spent in drink a little money some acquaintance had lent him, with which he had intended to buy food for his family.

  Their downward course after this was one that has been so often trodden and described, that the particulars need no repetition. With a drunken husband and two children, Clara found herself unable to sustain the unequal conflict with life's burdens, yet she never gave entirely up; her self-respect grew daily weaker, and her principles less able to resist the evil influences around her, yet love for her husband and children preserved her from many temptations that might otherwise have proved too strong.

  One bitter day in February, two young ladies were walking with the quick, firm step of those to whom life is an enjoyment as well as a battle,

  "Have you no father?" asked they.

  "Yes, but he's sick too, and I have a little brother at home; but the baby died yesterday, and we've no money to bury it."

  After asking a few more questions, the young ladies decided to follow the child home to see if she told the truth, and if so, to render more effectual assistance than street alms would prove. They were not overly gifted with that virtue which some good old divine prayed to be delivered from, the worldly virtue of prudence, or they would hardly have accompanied the girl through all the alleys, and turnings, and out-of-the-way places into which she led them. At length they came to a narrow alley swarming with negroes. The houses seemed like ant-hills, filled to the top, and the sidewalks were crowded with their overflowings. Fat black faces darkened every window. Stout, lazy-looking men

  One of the young ladies was alarmed, and wished to turn back; but the other, whose benevolence would have led her unshrinkingly through a battlefield when the contest was at its height, pressed on without giving a glance around her. The child went to the door of a cellar, that seemed rather like a little opening in the pavement, and gliding down, beckoned to the ladies to follow her. Even the more courageous one of the two hesitated to do this, while the other held her back imploringly. During this moment of hesitation, a tall, gaunt mulatto woman with wild and glaring eyes, approached them.

  "Go back, young ladies," she exclaimed, with a theatrical start and gesture;" what are such as you doing here? This is no place for you. Has your senses quite vanished from you, that you come to such a bottomless pit? My daughter! I lost her here; and I come to look for her morning and night. But I never want no other mother to feel what I've felt. Go back this minute, and if any one dares to say a word to you—" and she flourished a broken cane she held in her hand.

  Her manner and words so alarmed the more timid one that she could hardly stand, and the other young lady was about to retrace her steps, quite unwill-

  "There is Mr. Lyndsay, the city missionary," said she; "how fortunate!" and beckoning to him, he hurried to her assistance.

  He was evidently known in the alley; for the commotion and bustle that had been caused by the entrance of the young ladies was quieted at his approach, and the woman who had accosted them so singularly welcomed him with an approving smile and gesture, and, bidding him take good care of the ladies, left them to him, and disappeared in a house near by.

  "That is a half-deranged woman," observed Mr. Lyndsay; "the loss of her only child has affected her intellect; but, notwithstanding that, she has great influence among these demi-brutes. If it had not been for her, I should hardly have met with the tolerance I have here. But how did you happen to come to such a place?"

  "We were following a little beggar-girl home, to see if the sad story she told us was really true, and were so intent upon keeping sight of her, that we hardly noticed where she was leading us. She flitted down those steps and disappeared in that dark cellar at our feet, and we are almost afraid to pursue our investigations further; yet she was so miserably clad, and told such a piteous tale, that I do

  "If you will trust the matter to me," said Mr. Lyndsay, "I will attend to it, and report to you this afternoon, if you like."

  "Thank you," replied the young lady; "that will be the best way, I suppose. But they are probably in immediate want of fire and food, and on so cold a day as this there ought not to be an hour's delay in providing for their necessities. I will leave some money with you that you can spend for them as you think best;" and the young lady drew her purse from her muff.

  "Put up your purse, Miss Sumner," exclaimed Mr. Lyndsay, hastily; "wait till we are out of this alley."

  But his warning came too late. A slender, sharp-looking colored boy, who wanted but a shade or two of being white, had been hovering unnoticed near them, listening to their conversation. No sooner did his keen eyes catch sight of the purse, weighed down by its burden, than with a sudden dart upon it he clutched it and sprang into the nearest house.

  Mr. Lyndsay looked distressed, and Miss Sumner glanced at her empty hand with blank dismay.

  "It is my whole quarter's allowance," said she; "papa gave it to me this morning."

  "I am afraid you will never recover it," said

  The young ladies were very glad to accept his offer, for Miss Sumner's companion was trembling with terror, and Miss Sumner herself had lost some of her courage with her purse.

  They had but just turned the corner, and were breathing more freely, when their attention was attracted by a loud shout behind them. On looking back, they saw Judith running toward them with the purse in her hand. She had seen the whole affair from a window, and as the boy happened to take refuge in the same house with herself, she flew upon him, and with a celerity and adroitness equal to his own, snatched his prize from his grasp and ran with it after its owner. This had caused the bustle that alarmed Mr. Lyndsay and the young ladies.

  Miss Sumner's eye took a hasty survey of the woman's dress. She saw that it was arranged with a certain decency and neatness, which showed that her old habits of order and regard for her per-

  The young lady drew a small gold piece from her purse and offered it to her.

  "What do you give me this for?" she burst forth, with increased wildness of look and flightiness of manner; "is it for my honesty? Do you dare to pay me for my honesty? You rich folks think you can buy us poor ones, soul and body; but I'm above you all. I live up in the sky with the Lord and his angels, where you daren't come—where you daren't come, with all your precious gold and silver;" and she glared close into Miss Sumner's eyes with her own, in whose depths of gloom no ray of brightness shone.

  "It was for the trouble you had taken for me that I offered you that," said Miss Sumner, quietly and soothingly, "not for your honesty."

  "Trouble!" repeated Judith, with a wild laugh; "ha! ha! you call that trouble, do you? Oh! child, child!" with a sudden change to the deepest sadness of tone and look, "if you had a husband and brother in the penitentiary for nine long years for loving money too well, and a daughter in the cold ground because she wanted to live like a lady, and keep her hands soft, and wear silks and velvets like you white ladies, then you would know what

  Miss Sumner took it, and Judith disappeared round the corner. Mr. Lyndsay accompanied them a little way, and then returned to fulfill his promise of ascertaining the condition of the occupants of the cellar.

  He descended the rickety steps, and stood for a few minutes to let his eyes become accustomed to the gloom of the place. He heard a faint voice speaking at intervals from the further corner of the room, and gradually there came out in the dim light the figure of a woman stretched on the ground (for the cellar had no floor); in another corner lay what seemed a bundle of rags, breathing heavily; and a little boy, with hardly an article of clothing upon him, was crouching among the smouldering ashes in the chimney corner. The girl who had led the ladies to this desolate abode stood near the fire-place, with her large eyes, which glittered unnaturally in her thin face, fixed with a painfully eager look on the compassionate visitor.

  The least distressing object in the miserable room was the dead body of a babe, whose life was as yet counted only by months and days. The ineffable repose of its softly-rounded features—the perfect serenity and peace stamped on its innocent face—the once restless hands, whose light, uncertain touch

  The reader will already have surmised that they who were reduced to this deep degradation were no other than Ben and Clara; and that not poverty alone, but crime, had been at work before they could sink so far. Ben had become a confirmed drunkard, not so much from love of drink as to drown thought and remorse; and Clara, after trying in vain to arouse in him a better spirit, had given up in despair, and allowed matters to take their own course, without attempting to do the little in her power to enable them to retain their old position.

  But by how many cords does our heavenly Father draw back the wanderers to his fold! In this, almost the lowest depth to which human nature could sink, there came to Clara this babe, like a dove from the ark of God's mercy; and though, even as the dove found the earth inhospitable and unkind, so the babe lay unwelcomed and uncherished

  But though prayers that had long been strange to her lips came from her heart, mingled with earnest resolutions of amendment and the bitterest pangs of remorse, yet, situated as she was, sick, cold, and hungry, with a husband who answered every appeal with a drunken growl, and no human aid near, she could not see how she could put her resolves into practice.

  It was without her knowledge, while she lay with her head buried in her hands, sighing, moaning, and ejaculating brief and earnest prayers for mercy and deliverance, that Maggie had slipped out on what had been for a long time her daily errand; and now, as if in answer to her cries, there stood before her the man whose business it was to seek out the poor and needy.

  Mr. Lindsay, with the promptness of true charity, soon had a fire blazing on the hearth, and an ample dinner provided for them. The pleasant warmth drew Ben from his corner, and he tried to utter a few expressions of gratitude as he hung over the blaze.

  The good missionary became interested in Clara's account of their sufferings; who, though she tried to shelter Ben's fault under the plea of illness, related every thing else so artlessly and simply that Mr. Lindsay was convinced of its truth. From the Dorcas Society of a neighboring church he obtained garments for herself and the children, wood from another benevolent society, and with the money Miss Sumner had intrusted to him he hired a better room, to which he had them removed immediately.

  Miss Sumner visited them there, and with her assistance Mr. Lindsay discovered some old patrons of Clara, who were very glad to find again the neat seamstress after whom they had made many ineffectual inquiries.

  "If you are willing to work hard, Clara," said Mr. Lindsay, "I will promise you enough to do."

  "Yes, sir," replied Clara; "I am too glad to get work not to do the best I can—'deed I will; but Ben hain't got no ambition left. I'm afraid for him. May be, sir, if you would talk to him pleasant, he might feel better."

  Mr. Lindsay sought an opportunity to speak to him alone, and tried by encouraging words to awaken some of his old spirit in him.

  Ben was employed in splitting up a load of wood, a job that had accidentally fallen to him, and, stopping in his work, he said, shaking his head,

  "'Taint of the least use to talk to me that way, Mr. Lindsay. I've tried my best, and I ain't any thing but a nigger, and never shall be. I'm just as good and respectable now as when I had twenty dollars a month, and my wife dressed like a lady; and what's the use of doing any thing more. You talk to me about educating my children; but what's the use of it. You see that black man that went by us just now, and held up his head so high when he saw me standing here. Well, I know'd him very well wonst, when I first came to the city. He was a head waiter then at parties, and is now, I believe; and he has been laying up money all his life. He's worth now twenty thousand dollars at least, and what good will it do him or his children? The more they know, the wuss it will be for 'em; for they won't keep company with their own color, and white folks won't associate with them, and thar they are shut up by themselves; and what good do their Brussels carpets and pianny do them, I'd like to know? They may try till they split, and they won't be any thing but just what I am, a nigger that every body despises."

  "No person who does their duty," replied Mr. Lyndsay, "is ever despised, no matter what his color may be."

  "Perhaps, Mr. Lyndsay, if the world was all made up of good people like you, that might be so. But

  "Certainly I do," said Mr. Lyndsay; "Clara is a good wife, and is trying hard now to bring up her children well."

  "Clary is a good woman, Mr. Lyndsay; it was all my fault that we were in that hole where you found us. She strived and struggled as hard as any poor woman could, but she couldn't keep me from drinking, and at last she had to give up. But she's never given me a hard word all the time we've been together, and if I leave off drink, as I am going to do, it will be for no other reason but that I don't want to see her and the children suffer. Well, now, good as she is, and nice and handsome as she can make herself look, if I was to take her in the cars, and they was full, the meanest and dirtiest white woman, or man either, would have a seat, and she would have to stand all the way; and if it was the steam-boat, she'd have to sleep on deck, and, like as not, not get any thing to eat—always be shoved a one side, as if she wa'n't made by the same God. Oh, Mr. Lyndsay, it's mighty hard for a man like me, that could be as good as any body, if his

  Ben had a great deal more to say, for he had thought more, in his temporary intervals of sobriety during the last two years, than ever before in his life; and this was the first time that his thoughts had found utterance. But, as he was becoming a little excited, Mr. Lyndsay, fearing he might be soon addressing an audience instead of an individual, left him, promising to call and see him soon.

  To all religious exhortations Ben turned a deaf ear, and after a time grew restive under them, and sometimes almost rude. To Clara's remonstrances he replied,

  "Preaching is very well, I ain't nothin' against it. I wouldn't mind doing a little of it myself. But to keep at a feller from mornin' till night, with 'Do this—it's your duty,' and 'bear that—it's your duty too;' and if you are knocked down, get up and rub the mud off, and say 'Thank you, for that's your duty;' and if you work hard all day, and get nothing but a cuss when you ask for your pay at night, why go home and make a special prayer for the man before you go to sleep, for that's another duty—this is coming it rather too strong. Mr. Lyndsay is a good man himself; but if he'd only keep his preaching for the white people, and let them practice it on us, it would do a great deal more good, I think."

  But though Ben grumbled in this way, still the oversight Mr. Lyndsay kept upon him was of great service in keeping him firm in his resolution to be temperate and industrious. A situation was procured for him with some difficulty, where, although the wages were low and the work heavy, and not connected with horses in the most remote degree, yet he performed his duties faithfully, and brought home the money to his wife every Saturday night.

  It grieved Clara very much that she could not induce him to renew his old practice of accompanying her to church on Sunday, but he had heard enough pious talk, he said, to last him the rest of his life; and so he passed the day principally in trying to keep asleep.

  During all this time, Americus remained in Paris, and Mr. Peyton had been prevented, by affairs connected with his family, from visiting the North, so that their apparent neglect, which weighed heavily on the minds of Ben and Clara, was afterward satisfactorally accounted for. As often happens when trials are sent upon the weak and dependent, human aid is put far away, that they may learn more readily the hard lesson of faith and trust in the unseen arm of the All-Father.