“She deserves it,” said Mr. Kent.

“I think she does,” said Mrs. Moore, smiling, “though for another reason.”

Mr. Kent blushed as only men with light hair, and light skin, and light eyes, can blush.

“I mean,” said Mr. Kent, furiously, “she deserves her refusal for her ingratitude.  After God provided her friends who made her a free woman, she is so senseless as to want to go back to be lashed and trodden under foot again, as the slaves of the South are.  I say, she deserves it for being such a fool.”

“And I say,” said Mrs. Moore, “she deserves it for deserting her kind mistress at a time when she most needed her services.  God did not raise her up friends because she had done wrong.”

“You are right, Emmy, in your views of Susan’s conduct; but you should be careful how you trace motives to such a source.  She certainly did wrong, and she has suffered; that is all we can say.  We must do the best we can to restore her to health.  She is very happy with us now, and will, no doubt, after a while, enjoy her liberty:  it would be a most unnatural thing if she did not.”

“But how is it, Mr. Kent,” said the colonel, “that after you induce these poor devils to give up their homes, that you do not start them in life; set them going in some way in the new world to which you transfer them.  You do not give them a copper, I am told.”

“We don’t calculate to do that,” said Mr. Kent.

“I believe you,” said Mrs. Moore, maliciously.

Mr. Kent looked indignant at the interruption, while his discomfiture was very amusing to the young officers, they being devoted admirers of Mrs. Moore’s talents and mince pies.  They laughed heartily; and Mr. Kent looked at them as if nothing would have induced him to overlook their impertinence but the fact, that they were very low on the list of lieutenants, and he was an abolition agent.  “We calculate, sir, to give them their freedom, and then let them look out for themselves.”

“That is, you have no objection to their living in the same world with yourself, provided it costs you nothing,” said the colonel.

“We make them free,” said Mr. Kent.  “They have their right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  They are no longer enslaved, body and soul.  If I see a man with his hands and feet chained, and I break those chains, it is all that God expects me to do; let him earn his own living.”

“But suppose he does not know how to do so,” said Mrs. Moore, “what then?  The occupations of a negro at the South are so different from those of the people at the North.”

“Thank God they are, ma’am,” said Mr. Kent, grandly.  “We have no overseers to draw the blood of their fellow creatures, and masters to look on and laugh.  We do not snatch infants from their mothers’ breasts, and sell them for whisky.”

“Neither do we,” said Mrs. Moore, her bosom heaving with emotion; “no one but an Abolitionist could have had such a wicked thought.  No wonder that men who glory in breaking the laws of their country should make such misstatements.”