“If he looks like a king, I know somebody who looks like a princess,” thought the happy young fellow, gazing down upon the proud, dainty figure by his side; but he smiled as he said, “What a little aristocrat you are, Miss Ercildoune! what a pity you were born a Yankee!”

“I am not a Yankee, Mr. Surrey,” replied the little aristocrat, “if to be a Yankee is to be a native of America.  I was born on the sea.”

“And your mother, I know, was English.”

“Yes, she was English.”

“Is it rude to ask if your father was the same?

“No!” she answered emphatically, “my papa is a Virginian,—­a Virginia gentleman,”—­the last word spoken with an untransferable accent,—­“there are few enough of them.”

“So, so!” thought Willie, “here my riddle is read.  Southern—­Virginia—­gentleman.  No wonder she has no love to spend on country or flag; no wonder we couldn’t agree.  And yet it can’t be that,—­what were the first words I ever heard from her mouth?” and, remembering that terrible denunciation of the “peculiar institution” of Virginia and of the South, he found himself puzzled the more.

Just then there came into the picture-gallery, where they were wasting a pleasant morning, a young man to whom Surrey gave the slightest of recognitions,—­well-dressed, booted, and gloved, yet lacking the nameless something which marks the gentleman.  His glance, as it rested on Surrey, held no love, and, indeed, was rather malignant.

“That fellow,” said Surrey, indicating him, “has a queer story connected with him.  He was discharged from my father’s employ to give place to a man who could do his work better; and the strange part of it”—­he watched her with an amused smile to see what effect the announcement would have upon her Virginia ladyship—­“is that number two is a black man.”

A sudden heat flushed her cheeks:  “Do you tell me your father made room for a black man in his employ, and at the expense of a white one?”

“It is even so.”

“Is he there now?”

Surrey’s beautiful Saxon face crimsoned.  “No:  he is not,” he said reluctantly.

“Ah! did he, this black man,—­did he not do his work well?”

“Admirably.”

“Is it allowable, then, to ask why he was discarded?”

“It is allowable, surely.  He was dismissed because the choice lay between him and seven hundred men.”

“And you”—­her face was very pale now, the flush all gone out of it—­“you have nothing to do with your father’s works, but you are his son,—­did you do naught? protest, for instance?”

“I protested—­and yielded.  The contest would have been not merely with seven hundred men, but with every machinist in the city.  Justice versus prejudice, and prejudice had it; as, indeed, I suppose it will for a good many generations to come:  invincible it appears to be in the American mind.”

“Invincible! is it so?” She paused over the words, scrutinizing him meanwhile with an unconscious intensity.