’That may be true.  But it only shows that our laborers fare better than your slaves.’

’I’m not sure of that.  I am sure, however, that our slaves are more contented than the run of laboring men at the North.’

’That proves nothing.  Your blacks have no hope, no chance to rise; and they submit—­though I judge not cheerfully—­to an iron necessity.  The Northern laborer, if very poor, may be discontented; but discontent urges him to effort, and leads to the bettering of his condition.  I tell you, my friend, slavery is an expensive luxury.  You Southern nabobs will have it; and you have to pay for it.’

’Well, we don’t complain.  But, seriously, my good fellow, I feel that I’m carrying out the design of the Almighty in holding my niggers.  I think he made the black to serve the white.’

‘I think,’ I replied, ’that whatever He designs works perfectly.  Your institution certainly does not.  It keeps the producer, who, in every society, is the really valuable citizen, in the lowest poverty, while it allows those who do nothing to be “clad in fine linen, and to fare sumptuously every day."’

‘It does more than that, sir,’ said Madam P——­, with animation; ’it brutalizes and degrades the master and the slave; it separates husband and wife, parent and child; it sacrifices virtuous women to the lust of brutal men; and it shuts millions out from the knowledge of their duty and their destiny.  A good and just God could not have designed it; and it must come to an end.’

If lightning had struck in the room I could not have been more startled than I was by the abrupt utterance of such language in a planter’s house, in his very presence, and by his slave.  The Colonel, however, expressed no surprise and no disapprobation.  It was evidently no new thing to him.

‘It is rare, madam,’ I said, ’to hear such sentiments from a Southern lady—­one reared among slaves.’

Before she could reply, the Colonel laughingly said,—­

’Bless you, Mr. K——­, madam is an out-and-out abolitionist, worse by fifty per cent. than Garrison or Wendell Phillips.  If she were at the North she would take to pantaloons, and “stump” the entire Free States; wouldn’t you, Alice?’

‘I’ve no doubt of it,’ rejoined the lady, smiling.  ’But I fear I should have poor success.  I’ve tried for ten years to convert you, and Mr. K——­ can see the result.’

It had grown late; and, with my head full of working niggers and white slave-women, I went to my apartment.

The next day was Sunday.  It was near the close of December, yet the air was as mild and the sun as warm as in our Northern October.  It was arranged at the breakfast-table that we all should attend service at ‘the meeting-house,’ a church of the Methodist persuasion, located some eight miles away; but as it wanted some hours of the time for religious exercises to commence, I strolled out after breakfast,