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A FEW weeks after the funeral of Mr. Bell, Gerald
wrote the following letter to Mr. King:—

“My honored and dear Friend,—Lily-mother has decided
to go to Europe this fall, that I may have certain
educational advantages which she has planned for me.
That is the only reason she assigns; but she is evidently
nervous about your investigations, and I think a wish to be
out of the country for the present has had some effect in
producing this decision. I have not sought to influence
her concerning this, or the other important point you wot
of. My desire is to conform to her wishes, and promote
her happiness in any way she chooses. This it is my duty
as well as my pleasure to do. She intends to remain in
Europe a year, perhaps longer. I wish very much to see
you all; and Eulalia might well consider me a very impolite
acquaintance, if I should go without saying good by.
If you do not return to Boston before we sail, I will, with
your permission, make a short call upon you in Northampton.
I thank Rose-mother for her likeness. It will be
very precious to me. I wish you would add your own and
another; for wherever my lot may be cast, you three will
always be among my dearest memories.”

“I am glad of this arrangement,” said Mr. King. “At
their age, I hope a year of separation will prove sufficient.”

The Rose-mother covered the wound in her heart, and
answered, “Yes, it is best.” But the constrained tone of

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the letter pained her, and excited her mind to that most
unsatisfactory of all occupations, the thinking over what
might have been. She had visions of her first-born son, as
he lay by her side a few hours before Chloe carried him
away from her sight; and then there rose before her the
fair face of that other son, whose pretty little body was
passing into the roses of Provence. Both of them had
gone out of her life. Of one she received no tidings
from the myusterious world of spirits; while the other was
walking within her vision, as a shadow, the reality of which
was intangible.

Mr. King returned to Boston with his family in season
for Gerald to make the proposed call before he sailed.
There was a little heightening of color when he and Eulalia
met, but he had drilled himself to perform the part of
a polite acquaintance; and as she thought she had been
rather negligently treated of late, she was cased in the
armor of maidenly reserve.

Both Mr. and Mrs. King felt it to be an arduous duty to
call on Mrs. Fitzgerald. That lady, though she respected
their conscientiousness, could not help disliking them.
They had disturbed her relations with Gerald, by suggesting
the idea of another claim upon his affections; and they
had offended her pride by introducing the vulgar phantom
of a slave son to haunt her imagination. She was continually
jealous of Mrs. King; so jealous, that Gerald never
ventured to show her the likeness of his Rose-mother.
But though the discerning eyes of Mr. and Mrs. King real
this in the very excess of her polite demonstrations, other
visitors who were present when they called supposed them
to be her dearest friends, and envied her the distinguished
intimacy.

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Such formal attempts at intercourse only increased the
cravings of Rosa's heart, and Mr. King requested Gerald to
grant her a private interview. Inexpressibly precious were
these few stolen moments, when she could venture to call
him son, and hear him call her mother. He brought her
an enamelled locket containing some of his hair, inscribed
with the word “Gerald”; and she told him that to the day
of her death she would always wear it next her heart.
He opened a small morocco case, on the velvet lining of
which lay a lily of delicate silver filigree.

“Here is a little souvenir for Eulalia,” said he.

Her eyes moistened as she replied, “I fear it would not
be prudent, my son.”

He averted his face as he answered: “Then give it to
her in my mother's name. It will be pleasant to me to
think that my sister is wearing it.”

A few days after Gerald had sailed for Europe, Mr.
King started for New Orleans, taking with him his wife
and daughter. An auctioneer was found, who said he had
sold to a gentleman in Natchez a runaway slave named
Bob Bruteman, who strongly resembled the likeness of
Gerald. They proceeded to Natchez and had an interview
with the purchaser, who recognized a likeness between his
slave Bob and the picture of Gerald. He said he had
made a bad bargain of it, for the fellow was intelligent and
artful, and had escaped from him two months ago. In answer
to his queries, Mr. King stated that, if Bob was the
one he supposed, he was a white man, and had friends who
wished to redeem him; but as the master had obtained no
clew to the runaway, he could of course give none. So
their long journey produced no result, except the

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satisfaction of thinking that the object of their interest had escaped
from slavery.

It had been their intention to spend the coldest months
at the South, but a volcano had flared up all of a sudden
at Harper's Ferry, and boiling lava was rolling all over
the land. Every Northern man who visited the South
was eyed suspiciously, as a possible emissary of John
Brown; and the fact that Mr. King was seeking to redeem
a runaway slave was far from increasing confidence in
him. Finding that silence was unsatisfactory, and that he
must either indorse slavery or be liable to perpetual provocations
to quarrel, he wrote to Mr. Blumenthal to have
their house in readiness for their return; an arrangement
which Flora and her children hailed with merry shouts
and clapping of hands.

When they arrived, they found their house as warm
as June, with Flora and her family there to receive them,
backed by a small army of servants, consisting of Tulee,
with her tall son and daughter, and little Benny, and Tom
and Chloe; all of whom had places provided for them,
either in the household or in Mr. King's commercial establishment.
Their tropical exuberance of welcome made
him smile. When the hearty hand-shakings were over, he
said to his wife, as they passed into the parlor, “It really
seemed as if we were landing on the coast of Guinea with
a cargo of beads.”

“O Alfred,” rejoined she, “I am so grateful to you for
employing them all! You don't know, and never can
know, how I feel toward these dusky friends; for you never
had them watch over you, day after day, and night after
night, patiently and tenderly leading you up from the valley
of the shadow of death.”

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He pressed her hand affectionately, and said, “Inasmuch
as they did it for you, darling, they did it for me.”

This sentiment was wrought into their daily deportment
to their servants; and the result was an harmonious relation
between employer and employed, which it was beautiful
to witness. But there are skeletons hidden away in
the happiest households. Mrs. King had hers, and Tom
and Chole had theirs. The death of Mr. Bell and the absence
of Mrs. Fitzgerald left no one in Boston who would
be likely to recognize them; but they knew that the Fugitive
Slave Act was still in force, and though they relied
upon Mr. King's generosity in case of emergency, they had
an uncomfortable feeling of not being free. It was not so
with Tulee. She had got beyond Mount Pisgah into the
Canaan of freedom; and her happiness was unalloyed. Mr.
King, though kind and liberal to all, regarded her with especial
favor, on account of old associations. The golden
hoops had been taken from her ears when she was in the
calaboose; but he had presented her with another pair,
for he liked to have her look as she did when she opened
for him that door in New Orleans, which had proved an
entrance to the temple and palace of his life. She felt herself
to be a sort of prime minister in the small kingdom,
and began to deport herself as one having authority. No
empress ever had more satisfaction in a royal heir than she
had in watching her Benny trudging to school, with his
spelling-book slung over his shoulder, in a green satchel
Mrs. King had made for him. The stylishness of the establishment
was also a great source of pride to her; and
she often remarked in the kitchen that she had always said
gold was none too good for Missy Rosy to walk upon.
Apart from this consideration, she herself had an Oriental

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delight in things that were lustrous and gayly colored.
Tom had learned to read quite fluently, and was accustomed
to edify his household companions with chapters
from the Bible on Sunday evenings. The descriptions of
King Solomon's splendor made a lively impression on Tulee's
mind. When she dusted the spacious parlors, she
looked admiringly at the large mirrors, the gilded circles
of gas lights, and the great pictures framed in crimson and
gold, and thought that the Temple of Solomon could not
have been more grand. She could scarcely believe Mrs.
Delano was wealthy. “She's a beautiful lady,” said she
to Flora; “but if she's got plenty o' money, what makes
her dress so innocent and dull? There's Missy Rosy
now, when she's dressed for company, she looks like the
Queen of Shebee.”

One morning Tulee awoke to look out upon a scene
entirely new to her Southern eyes, and far surpassing
anything she had imagined of the splendor of Solomon's
Temple. On the evening previous, the air had been full
of mist, which, as it grew colder, had settled on the trees
of the Common, covering every little twig with a panoply
of ice. A very light snow had fallen softly during the
night, and sprinkled the ice with a feathery fleece. The
trees, in this delicate white vesture, standing up against a
dark blue sky, looked like the glorified spirits of trees.
Here and there, the sun touched them, and dropped a
shower of diamonds. Tulee gazed a moment in delighted
astonishment, and ran to call Chloe, who exclaimed, “They
looks like great white angels, and Ise feared they'll fly
away 'fore Missis gits up.”

Tulee was very impatient for the sound of Mrs. King's
bell, and as soon as the first tinkle was heard she rushed

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into her dressing-room, exclaiming, “O, do come to the
window, Missy Rosy! Sure this is silver land.”

Rosa was no less surprised when she looked out upon
that wonderful vision of the earth, in its transfigured raiment
of snow-glory. “Why, Tulee,” said she, “it is diamond
land. I've seen splendid fairy scenes in the theatres
of Paris, but never anything so brilliant as this.”

“I used to think the woods down South, all covered with
jess'mines, was the beautifullest thing,” responded Tulee;
“but, Lors, Missy Rosy, this is as much handsomer as
Solomon's Temple was handsomer than a meetin'-house.”

But neither the indoor nor the outdoor splendor, nor all
the personal comforts they enjoyed, made this favored band
of colored people forgetful of the brethren they had left in
bondage. Every word about John Brown was sought for
and read with avidity. When he was first taken captive,
Chloe said: “The angel that let Peter out o'prison ha' n't
growed old an' hard o' hearing. If we prays loud enough,
he'll go and open the doors for old John Brown.”

Certainly, it was not for want of the colored people's
praying loud and long enough, that the prisoner was not supernaturally
delivered. They did not relinquish the hope
till the 2d of December: and when that sad day arrived, they
assembled in their meeting-house to watch and pray. All
was silent, except now and then an occasional groan, till
the hands of the clock pointed to the moment of the martyr's
exit from this world. Then Tom poured forth his
soul in a mighty voice of prayer, ending with the agonized
entreaty, “O Lord, thou hast taken away our Moses.
Raise us up a Joshua!” And all cried, “Amen!”

Chloe, who had faith that could walk the stormiest
waves, spoke words of fervent cheer to the weeping

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congregation. “I tell ye they ha'n't killed old John Brown,”
said she; “'cause they could n't kill him. The angel
that opened the prison doors for Peter has let him out,
and sent him abroad in a different way from what we'
spected; that's all.”

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