Chapter

I. The Mystery of Market Speech and Prayer Meetings

II.  Contraband of War

III.  Uncle Daniel’s Story

IV.  Arrival of the Union Army

V. Release of Iola Leroy

VI.  Robert Johnson’s Promotion and Religion

VII.  Tom Anderson’s Death

VIII.  The Mystified Doctor

IX.  Eugene Leroy and Alfred Lorraine

X. Shadows in the Home

XI.  The Plague and the Law

XII.  School-girl Notions

XIII.  A Rejected Suitor

XIV.  Harry Leroy

XV.  Robert and his Company

XVI.  After the Battle

XVII.  Flames in the School-Room

XVIII.  Searching for Lost Ones

XIX.  Striking Contrasts

XX.  A Revelation

XXI.  A Home for Mother

XXII.  Further Lifting of the Veil

XXIII.  Delightful Reunions

XXIV.  Northern Experience

XXV.  An Old Friend

XXVI.  Open Questions

XXVII.  Diverging Paths

XXVIII.  Dr. Latrobe’s Mistake

XXIX.  Visitors from the South

XXX.  Friends in Council

XXXI.  Dawning Affections

XXXII.  Wooing and Wedding

XXXIII.  Conclusion

Note

CHAPTER I.

MYSTERY OF MARKET SPEECH AND PRAYER-MEETING.

“Good mornin’, Bob; how’s butter dis mornin’?”

“Fresh; just as fresh, as fresh can be.”

“Oh, glory!” said the questioner, whom we shall call Thomas Anderson, although he was known among his acquaintances as Marster Anderson’s Tom.

His informant regarding the condition of the market was Robert Johnson, who had been separated from his mother in his childhood and reared by his mistress as a favorite slave.  She had fondled him as a pet animal, and even taught him to read.  Notwithstanding their relation as mistress and slave, they had strong personal likings for each other.

Tom Anderson was the servant of a wealthy planter, who lived in the city of C——­, North Carolina.  This planter was quite advanced in life, but in his earlier days he had spent much of his time in talking politics in his State and National capitals in winter, and in visiting pleasure resorts and watering places in summer.  His plantations were left to the care of overseers who, in their turn, employed negro drivers to aid them in the work of cultivation and discipline.  But as the infirmities of age were pressing upon him he had withdrawn from active life, and given the management of his affairs into the hands of his sons.  As Robert Johnson and Thomas Anderson passed homeward from the market, having bought provisions for their respective homes, they seemed to be very light-hearted and careless, chatting and joking with each other; but every now and then, after looking furtively around, one would drop into the ears of the other some news of the battle then raging between the North and South which, like two great millstones, were grinding slavery to powder.