said to me, ’By George, Mr. Fitzgerald, one of these fellows looks so much like you, that, if you were a little tanned by exposure to the sun, I shouldn’t know you apart.’  ‘That’s flattering,’ replied I, ‘to be compared to a negro.’  And I hurried away, being impatient to make an early call upon your lady at the Revere House.  I don’t suppose I should ever have thought of it again, if your present conversation had not brought it to my mind.”

“Do you know whether Mr. Bruteman sold those slaves after they were sent back?” inquired Mr. King.

“There is one fact connected with the affair which I will tell you, if you promise not to mention it,” replied the young man.  “The Abolitionists annoyed grandfather a good deal about those runaways, and he is nervously sensitive lest they should get hold of it, and publish it in their papers.”  Having received the desired promise, he went on to say:  “Those slaves were mortgaged to grandfather, and he sent orders to have them immediately sold.  I presume Mr. Bruteman managed the transaction, for they were his slaves; but I don’t know whether he reported the name of the purchaser.  He died two months ago, leaving his affairs a good deal involved; and I heard that some distant connections in Mississippi were his heirs.”

“Where can I find Captain Kane?” inquired Mr. King.

“He sailed for Calcutta a fortnight ago,” rejoined Gerald.

“Then there is no other resource but to go to New Orleans, as soon as the weather will permit,” was the reply.

“I honor your zeal,” said the young man.  “I wish my own record was clean on the subject.  Since I have taken the case home to myself, I have felt that it was mean and wrong to send back fugitives from slavery; but it becomes painful, when I think of the possibility of having helped to send back my own brother,—­and one, too, whom I have supplanted in his birthright.”

* * * * *

When Mr. King returned to Northampton, the information he had obtained sent a new pang to the heart of his wife.  “Then he is a slave!” she exclaimed.  “And while the poor fellow was being bound and sent back to slavery, I was dancing and receiving homage.  Verily the Furies do pursue me.  Do you think it is necessary to tell Mrs. Fitzgerald of this?”

“In a reverse of cases, I think you would feel that you ought to be informed of everything,” he replied.  “But I will save you from that portion of the pain.  It was most fitting that a woman should make the first part of the disclosure; but this new light on the subject can be as well revealed by myself.”

“Always kind and considerate,” she said.  “This news will be peculiarly annoying to her, and perhaps she will receive it better from you than from me; for I can see that I have lost her favor.  But you have taught me that it is of more consequence to deserve favor than to have it; and I shall do my utmost to deserve a kindly estimate from her.”