“Heavens, Nelse! I’m your young Mas’ Tom. I’m Tom Hatton; don’t you know me, boy?” “You can’t be—you can’t be!” exclaimed the Negro. “I am, I tell you. Don’t you remember the scar I got on my head from falling off old Baldy’s back? Here it is. Can’t you see?” cried the stranger, lifting the long hair away from one side of his brow. “Doesn’t this convince you?” “It’s you—it’s you; ’tain’t nobody else but Mas’ Tom!” and the ex-slave and his former master rushed joyously into each other’s arms. There was no distinction of colour or condition there. There was no thought of superiority on the one hand, or feeling of inferiority on the other. They were simply two loving friends who had been long parted and had met again. After a while the Negro said, “I’m sure the Lord must ’a’ sent you right here to this house, so’s you wouldn’t be eatin’ off o’ none o’ these poor white people ’round here.” “I reckon you’re religious now, Nelse; but I see it ain’t changed your feeling toward poor white people.” “I don’t know about that. I used to be purty bad about ’em.” “Indeed you did. Do you remember the time we stoned the house of old Nat, the white wood-sawyer?” “Well, I reckon I do! Wasn’t we awful, them days?” said Nelse, with forced contrition, but with something almost like a chuckle in his voice. And yet there was a great struggle going on in the mind of this black man. Thirty years of freedom and the advantages of a Northern State made his whole soul revolt at the word “master.” But that fine feeling, that tender sympathy, which is natural to the real Negro, made him hesitate to make the poor wreck of former glory conscious of his changed estate by using a different appellation. His warm sympathies conquered. “I want you to see my wife and boys, Mas’ Tom,” he said, as he passed out of the room. Eliza Hatton sat in her neatly appointed little front room, swelling with impotent rage. If this story were chronicling the doings of some fanciful Negro, or some really rude plantation hand, it might be said that the “front room was filled with a conglomeration of cheap but pretentious furniture, and the walls covered with gaudy prints”—this seems to be the usual phrase. But in it the chronicler too often forgets how many Negroes were house-servants, and from close contact with their master’s families imbibed aristocratic notions and quiet but elegant tastes. This front room was very quiet in its appointments. Everything in it was subdued except—Mrs. Hatton. She was rocking back and forth in a light little rocker that screeched the indignation she could not express. She did not deign to look at Nelse as he came into the room; but an acceleration of speed on the part of the rocker showed that his presence was known. Her husband’s enthusiasm suddenly died out as he looked at her; but he put on a brave face as he said,— “’Lizy, I bet a cent you can’t guess who that pore man in there is.”