cloud, he read, with a clear, melodious voice, the beautiful story of the commanded sacrifice and the angelic interposition. Milly dropped her work, and leaned on her right elbow to listen, and Simon laid down his braided shucks and leaned on his left arm towards the youthful reader. The whitish, crispy wool of the old cripple almost touched the glistening locks of Marcus, and both pair of large, dilated eyeballs were drawn to a focus on the boy's beaming countenance.

"Jist listen-bless his heart-what a preacher he would make!" exclaimed Simon, giving Aunt Milly an emphatic nudge; "and you sees I am right, too—I knew I was. Lord forgive your pervarseness."

The

"I never disputes the good book when I hears it, Simon; and I allows I was mistaken this time; but it might have been one as well as t'other, that's all."

"Now I jist wants to convince you of one thing," continued the persevering Simon, "that it does make a heap of difference what person is meant. Suppose I puts my foot in the fire-you don't feel it, does you?"

"No, to be sure I dosn't."

"Well, if you puts yourn in, I don't feel it. Then you see that proves the difference; so there's no use of argufying no more."

"No more there aint, Simon," said Milly, anxious to change the subject, as she was conscious he had won the victory, and exulted in her defeat.

It may be that the forensic disputations of our sable logicians were as lucid, and their subject as important, as some of our fairer and more learned brethren's. The negro certainly takes great pride in argument, particularly on religious subjects; and intrenching himself behind the bulwark of his faith, he clings to his preconceived opinions with a firmness and pertinacity which in ancient days would have won him the blazing crown of martyrdom. His religion, blended, as it is, with the most intense superstition, sometimes gives a tone of sublimity to his thoughts, in the midst of the most ludi.

crous associations. He sees the ghost flitting through the midnight shades of the dark pine woods, and hears the wailing of the lost spirit in the notes of the melancholy whippoorwill, and the hooting of the solemn owl. There is an African mythology as well as a Grecian and pagan one, and the negro's night is peopled by shapes which would puzzle the most ingenious statuary to fashion, or the most inventive artist to delineate.

Winter glided away peacefully and monotonously at the ferryman's cabin, and the gentle, almost imperceptible approach of a southern spring was felt rather than seen. The turbid waters looked clearer and bluer, the holly-trees had a brighter, deeper green, and the music of birds began to vocalize the lonely margin of the waters.

Mr. Warland, confident in his own strength, looked for the return of Mr. Bellamy with great impatience. He was very weary of his present mode of existence, and panted for a more congenial field of action. He had remained completely domesticated during the winter months, and out of the reach of temptation; for he poured out every drop of alcohol left in his possession, and ground the bottle to powder, that he might annihilate even the home of his enemy.

There was to be a kind of political meeting, a few miles distant, which he was anxious to attend. Marcus saw the preparations for his departure with foreboding heart. Never had he returned from such a gathering without a reeling step and a cursing lip. It was always the commencement of a long season of inebriation. Marcus longed to warn him of his danger, and entreat him to keep out of the way of temptation and sin. But this would seem such an insult to his father's character, he could not frame the words that trembled on his lips. They were written legibly, however, in his earnest eyes, and Mr. Warland answered as if they had been spoken.

"Fear not, my son; your father will not disgrace himself again. He has profited by the bitter lessons of experience,

and can say to the tempter, with unhesitating voice, 'Avaunt! carry your baffled arts elsewhere.'”

Marcus tried to smile and shake off the depression that hung heavy on his mind. He was quite a Nimrod in the woods, and taking his gun and pouch, and mounting a pony that Uncle Simon had left for his use, followed by his bounding dog, he soon forgot his sad forebodings in the excitement of hunting. Often had he seen the track of the flying deer; he had even caught a glimpse of their branching antlers through the swaying boughs; but never had he brought the noble animal at bay, or carried home a saddle of venison to the exulting Milly. But this day he actually won the crown of glory. He killed a beautiful deer with his own hand, and bathed his knife in the life-blood of its panting heart. As the victim turned upon him its wild, wistful, dying eyes, ere they closed for ever, the triumphant boy felt a pang of unutterable remorse dart through his heart. The dripping knife fell from his hand, and a mist darkened his vision. He felt that he was a cruel murderer, and would have given the best blood of his own heart to have restored life to the stiffening limbs of the bleeding animal. Then he remembered what a trophy it was, how much money it would add to his slowly increasing store, how Aunt Milly would praise his exploit, and little Katy's blue eyes dance with rapture, when she saw him bearing it homeward, swung in triumph across his pony, its antlers adorned with the holly's shining leaves. All the honours he anticipated awaited his return, and he watched his father's coming with redoubled anxiety, that he might inform him of his unlooked-for achieve

ment.

"Don't leave your gun here, brother," said little Katy, as he leaned it against the wall in a corner of the cabin, “I'm afraid of it."

"But you must not touch it, or go near it, and then there is no danger. There is a load in it that I do not wish to waste, as I intend to go out again to-morrow. Aunt Milly, you must have a dish of smoking venison prepared for father's

supper; we will have one noble meal, and sell the rest, skin and all. I'll keep the antlers, however, to adorn the door of our cabin, and to let people know a descendant of the mighty Assyrian hunter dwells beneath this roof."

Marcus must be pardoned a little boasting. For a boy of ten the capture of the deer is an ultima Thule of ambition, and whatever after victories life may offer, no laurels glow with a brighter lustre than those won in the wild green wood.

"I wish father would come," exclaimed Katy, when the night grew dark, and the children drew near the hearth where the venison exhaled its savoury odours. Though the springtime of the year diffused a mid-day glow, the chill night-air required the warmth of a fire, and the light-wood knot was the only lamp that illumined their dwelling.

"I wish he would, indeed," cried Marcus, the glow of success fading away in the chill of apprehension. He stood at the door looking, with his hand over his brow, into the thickening shadows.

"Never mind, young master," said Milly, pitying the hungry Katy, "you can eat your supper, and I'll keep ole master's hot at the fire, and serve it up for him when he come back."

Katy rejoiced in this arrangement, but Marcus could not eat. A sense of coming evil produced that sickness of the soul, a thousand times more deadly than physical disease. He was as sure that his father would return shorn of his regenerated manhood, as if he saw him staggering over the threshold. He came at last, just as his son's prophetic eye had beheld him, reeling into the room, followed by a rough-looking stranger, who came in with his hat on, and took a seat by the fire, with the confidence of a welcome guest. Marcus gazed upon his father with a look such as a child of light might cast upon fallen humanity, then turned inquiringly towards the dark-bearded and forbidding looking stranger.

"What are you staring at me so for?" muttered Warland, pushing his chair back at the imminent risk of falling out of it. "Call Milly, and let's have some supper."

"Marcus has killed a deer," cried little Katy, eager to announce the astounding tidings. "Only think, Marcus has father."

killed a deer,

We will not sully the paper by recording the oath that fell from Warland's lips, and seemed to blister Katy's spotless cheek, for she turned away shrinking, like a young mimosa, and drew nearer Aunt Milly, who was placing the venison and corn-bread on the table, with a clouded brow. She mourned for the renewed degradation of their house, and for the fresh sorrows of her darling children. She was unaware of the evil impending over herself.

"Is this the woman?" asked the stranger, measuring her from head to foot with a bold, calculating glance.

แ "Yes," replied Warland, "but wait a while-the children." "I tell you I'm in a hurry," said the man, "and must be off directly. Look round here, nigger, and tell us how old you are."

"It's none of your business," said Milly, rolling her eyes portentously at him, a faint glimpse of his purpose dawning on her understanding.

"I shall teach you better manners, I promise you," said the man, giving a whizzing motion to the whip he carried in his right hand, and which he had been trailing idly on the floor. "When you're my master, you may," said Milly, with a scornful toss of her turbaned brows.

"I'm if I choose to take you, so none of your master now, your airs to me." Then turning to Warland, who was cowering before the flashing eye of Marcus, he added, "I'll keep to the bargain, and give you what we agreed. If I find you've deceived me, however, and she proves unsound, or lazy, or unmanageable, I'll not pay you one cent."

"Father," exclaimed Marcus, coming between him and the man, directly in front of Aunt Milly, in whose veins the burning blood of Africa was boiling with indignation; "father, you are not going to sell Aunt Milly-you cannot-you dare not do it."