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152 UNCLE TOM’S CABIN; OR,

anything disagreeable being, according to her account, quite suf-
ficient to close the scene, and put an end to all her earthly trials
at once. Tom, therefore, in his well-brushed broad-cloth suit,
smoothed beaver, glossy boots, faultless wristbands and collar,
with his grave, good-natured black face, looked respectable enough
to be a Bishop of Carthage, as men of his colour were in other
ages.

Then, too, he was in a beautiful place, a consideration to which
his sensitive race are never indifferent; and he did enjoy with a
quiet joy the birds, the flowers, the fountains, the perfume, and
light and beauty of the court, the silken hangings, and pictures,
and lustres, and statuettes, and gilding, that made the parlours
within a kind of Aladdin’s palace to him.

If ever Africa shall show an elevated and cultivated race—and
come it must, some time, her turn to figure in the great drama of
human improvement—life will awake there with a gorgeousness
and splendour of which our cold western tribes faintly have con-
ceived. In that far-off mystic land of gold and gems, and spices,
and waving palms, and wondrous flowers, and miraculous fertility,
will awake new forms of art; new styles of splendour; and the
negro race, no longer despised and trodden down, will, perhaps,
show forth some of the latest and most magnificent revelations of
human life. Certainly they will, in their gentleness, their lowly
docility of heart, their aptitude to repose on a superior mind and
rest on a higher power, their childlike simplicity of affection, and
facility of forgiveness. In all these they will exhibit the highest
form of the peculiarly Christian life, and, perhaps, as God chas-
teneth whom he loveth, he hath chosen poor Africa in the furnace
of affliction, to make her the highest and noblest in that kingdom
which he will set up when every other kingdom has been tried
and failed ; for the first shall be last, and the last first.

Was this what Marie St. Clare was thinking of, as she stood,
gorgeously dressed, on the, verandah, one Sunday morning, clasp-
ing a diamond bracelet on her slender wrist? Most likely it was.
Or, if it wasn’t that, it was something else; for Marie patronised
good things, and she was going now, in full force—diamonds, silk,
and lace, and jewels and all—to a fashionable church, to be very
religious. Marie always made a point to be very pious on Sun-
days. There she stood, so slender, so elegant, so airy and undu-
lating in all her motions, her lace scarf enveloping her like a mist.
She looked a graceful creature, and she felt very good and very
elegant indeed. Miss Ophelia stood at her side, a perfect con-
trast. It was not that she had not as handsome a silk dress and
shawl, and as fine a pocket-handkerchief ; but stiffness and square
ness, and bolt-uprightness, enveloped her with as indefinite yet
appreciable a presence as did grace her elegant neighbour; not
the grace of God, however—that is quite another thing!

‘“* Where’s Eva?’’ said Marie.