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LIFE AMONG THE LOWLY 399
wonder, at first; but I think they will be brought to see as I do. Besides, I know there are many people at the North who do exactly what you said."
" Yes, but they are a minority; and, if we should begin to emancipate to any extent, we should soon hear from
you."
Miss Ophelia did not reply. There was a pause of some moments ; and St. Clare's countenance was overcast by a sad, dreamy expression.
" I don't know what makes me think of my mother so f much, to-night," he said. " I have a strange kind of feeling, as if she were near me. I keep thinking of things she used to say; Strange, what brings these past things so vividly back to us, sometimes ! "
St. Clare walked up and down the room for some minutes more, and then said, —
" I believe I '11 go down street, a few moments, and hear the news, to-night."
He took his hat and passed out.
Tom followed him to the passage, out of the court, and asked if he should attend him.
" No, my boy," said St. Clare. " I shall be back in an hour."
Tom sat down in the veranda. It was a beautiful moonlight evening, and he sat watching the rising and falling spray of the fountain, and listening to its murmur. Tom thought of his home, and that he should soon be a free man, and able to return to it at will. He thought how he should work to buy his wife and boys. He felt the muscles of his brawny arms with a sort of joy, as he thought they would soon belong to himself, and how much they could do to work out the freedom of his family. Then he thought of his noble young master, and, ever second to that, came the habitual prayer that he had always offered for him ; and then his thoughts passed on to the beautiful Eva, whom he now thought of among the angels; and he thought till he almost fancied that that bright face and |
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