in a distant part of the world that she could do nothing to mitigate, and if she should let her mind dwell upon it, she would be unable to do the duties that lay at hand. It seemed a subject “too painful to inquire into, and one that advancing light and civilization would live down.”[12] Meantime she was being quietly prepared in one corner of the world for a fit and not inconspicuous part in the thrilling drama of emancipation. She seems to have had a real human interest in the negroes as the expression of a certain individual and racial character. Nearly every novel she wrote had first or last a negro character. These dusky people of her imaginary world if placed by themselves would form a collection of highly individualized portraits, all taken from her picture gallery of actual memories. At Easthampton, Dr. Beecher had preached to an adjacent colony of colored people and when the family moved to Litchfield “one Dinah” and “one Zillah” came with the caravan and formed a very necessary part of the household at the parsonage. There were always colored servants to help about the work in the big Beecher home. One of these, whose name was Candace, a portly old black washerwoman, would sometimes take the little Harriet aside and tell her with tears about the saintly virtues of her departed mother. When Harriet visited her aristocratic relatives in Guilford and was taught the catechism by her Aunt Harriet, black Dinah, along with Harry, the bound boy, ranged at a respectful distance behind her, was taught also. “Dine” was a great friend of Harriet’s; they had many frolics together and the black playmate told the little girl many stories and made herself very interesting. When the Beechers came to live in Litchfield they found colored people still living there who had been born slaves. “Old Grimes,” famous in song and story, was a Litchfieldian slave; his character was sufficiently notorious for his death to be chronicled in the affecting lines: Old Grimes is dead, that good old soul, We ne’er shall see him more; He used to wear an old blue coat All buttoned down before. This happened in the early days, but we would fain believe that the song was a favorite by the Parsonage fireplace. The Beechers considered their dark-skinned household helpers as members of the family, and absent children invariably included them when they sent messages of affection back to the home. When the Beecher party were pausing in New York on their way to Ohio, the faithful Zillah came to call upon them; Harriet said that she was quite unchanged, her voice soft as ever, as she told them that she was now in very comfortable circumstances. Harriet said that she would be glad if she were quite sure to fill up her chink in this mortal life as well as Zillah did!