“My dear,” said the old parson, with an odd smile, “‘the days of the years of my pilgrimage on earth’ are seventy-seven years and five months, and during this long experience I have learned that all women are not lambs, nor all men lions. I have known one or two mistresses of plantations so cruel and tyrannical that the lives of their slaves were hells upon earth; and, on the other hand, I have known one or two masters who ruled entirely through conscience and affection; and one or two other people of each sex who were utterly incapable of ruling in any manner.” “These were exceptions, and the exception proves the rule, it is said. I know that women have more patience with children than men have, and these young colored men and girls, whose docility you doubt, are, in their ignorance, no more than children. Oh, Dr. Shaw, don’t you know that all the little children of our Lord are not under three feet tall? Some of them are over six. But there is another reason why I prefer to engage women for the school. There are so few fields of labor free to women, while there is such a vast area open to men.” No doubt the old minister had an overwhelming argument against this last “reason” in the fact that, as a rule, women were not required to work in any field of labor, but only in the lovely garden of home, cultivating the flowers of the nursery and the fruits of the dining-room, with a prospect of a harvest of domestic happiness, while the men worked for them in these outlying fields; but before he could utter his thought they were interrupted. Pontius Pilate ambled up to the house on his fat white cob, dismounted, and brought the mail bag to his mistress, pulled his front hair by way of obeisance, and then remounted his horse and rode away to the stable. Roma unlocked and emptied the bag. There were several papers and magazines, but only one letter. She offered the papers to her visitor, who gladly received and unfolded them. Then she took her letter. She recognized it at once—not by the handwriting—there was no handwriting—it was written by a typewriter, perhaps so that it might never be brought in evidence against its author, though Roma could not conjecture why that author thought it necessary to take such a precaution. Her first impulse was to tear it up and throw it away unread, but anxiety to hear from her loved and lost little Owlet prevailed over her disgust, and she opened and read it. It was a long, eloquent, impassioned appeal, which we will not inflict upon our readers. It ended in this wild sentence: “The child is dying—breaking her heart for you! I am losing my reason—going mad for you! Oh, Roma Fronde! what man ever worked, dared and suffered for woman’s love as I have done for yours? Send me a line; say that I may come to you and bring the child, and save us both from death, and me from hell!” Roma read the letter and passed it over to Dr. Shaw. He took it, read it, and said: