NEGRO LIFE tN AMERICA. 237

why, I'll try and maintain you have it,” said St. Clare; “I didu’t
know it was.”

‘Well, I only hope you won't be sorry for this when it's too
late!” said Marie; ‘but, believe it or not, my distress about
Eva, and the exertions I have made with that dear child, have
developed what I have long suspected.”

What the exertions were which Marie referred to it would have
been difficult to state. St. Clare quietly made this commentary
to himself, and went on smoking, like a hard-hearted wretch of
a man as he was, till a carriage drove up before the verandah,
and Eva and Miss Ophelia alighted. x!

Miss Ophelia marched straight to her own chamber, to put
away her bonnet and shawl, as was always her manner, before she
spoke a word on any subject; while Eva came, at St. Clare’s call,
and was sitting on his knee,'giving him an account of the services.

They soon heard loud exclamations from Miss Ophelia’s room
(which, like the one in which they were sitting, opened to the
verandah), and violent reproof addressed to somebody.

“What new witchcraft has Tops been brewing ?” asked St.
Clare. ‘That commotion is of her raising, I'll be bound!”

And, in a moment after, Miss Ophelia, in high indignation,
came dragging the culprit along.

“Come out here, now!” she said. ‘I will tell your master !”

«* What’s the case, now ?” said Augustine. ,

“The case is, that I cannot be plagued with this child any
longer! It’s past all bearing ; flesh and blood cannot endure it!
Here, I locked her up, and gave her a hymn to study ; and what
does she do, but spy out where I put my key, and has gone to my
bureau, and got a bonnet+trimming, and cut it all to pieces to
make doll’s jackets! I never saw anything like it in my life.”

“I told you, cousin,” said Marie, ‘that you'd find out that
these creatures can’t be brought. up without severity. If I had
my way, now,” she said looking reproachfully at St. Clare, “ I'd
send that child out, and have her thoroughly whipped ; I’d have
her whipped till she couldn’t.stand !” Hie

“T don’t doubt it,” said St. Clare. ‘Tell me of the lovely
rule of woman! I never saw above a dozen women that wouldn't
half kill a horse, or .servant either, if they had their own way
with them, let alone a man.” .

“There is no use in this shilly-shally way of yours, St. Clare !’’
said Marie. ‘‘ Cousin is a woman of sense, and she sees it now
as plain as I do,”

Miss Ophelia had just the capability of indignation that belongs
to the thorough-paced housekeeper, and this had been pretty ac-
tively roused by the artifice and wastefulness of the child; m
fact, many of my lady readers must own that they should have
felt just so in her circumstances ; but Marie's words went beyond
her, and she felt less heat.