“Because, Miss Julia,” replied Harrington simply, with a gentle impressiveness of voice and manner which brought a new sensation to the poor child’s mind, and made her color, “because Mr. Webster helped to pass a law which has made a great many poor people very unhappy. You yourself wouldn’t like a man who made innocent people suffer, would you?” “Oh, no, of course not,” stammered Julia, while Witherlee smiled maliciously, enjoying her confusion. “Dear me! but they’re only negroes, Mr. Harrington,” feebly remarked Mrs. Atkins, in a deprecating tone. “But, Mrs. Atkins, negroes have feelings,” said Emily. “Oh, well, dear,” responded Mrs. Atkins, “but their feelings are not the same as ours, you know. That is, they haven’t fine feelings.” “You remember the case that was lately reported in the newspapers, Mrs. Atkins,” said Harrington. “The rumor came that the kidnappers were in town with a warrant for a colored man, and his wife fell down dead with alarm when she heard it. I think you must allow that poor woman had feelings, and it is hard to deny that Mr. Webster was responsible for her murder. I saw those poor colored people in Southac street to-day, in wild distress and alarm at the report that a slave-hunter was in town, and no one who sees such things, and realizes them, can like Mr. Webster.” “O Mr. Harrington, indeed I can’t agree with you,” returned Mrs. Atkins with feeble excitement. “These things are unpleasant, I admit, but Mr. Webster is a great statesman, you know—oh, there never was such a statesman as Mr. Webster! He’s perfectly splendid, and I’m sure if he was to have all the negroes in the country killed—the horrid creatures!—I’m sure I would like him just as much as ever. Indeed I would, and so would Mr. Atkins. O if you’d only heard Mr. Webster at Faneuil Hall last Saturday, I know you’d have been converted. He didn’t say a word about politics, and he was so majestic, and so venerable and so—so pleasant—oh, it was beautiful!” And Mrs. Atkins fanned herself in a feeble fluster of admiration for Mr. Webster, whose speech, by the way, had been very decrepit, rambling, and dull, with only a touch here and there of the true Websterian massive power and energy. “Well, Mrs. Atkins,” said Witherlee in his cool, polite, provoking way, “for my part, I don’t understand how you can admire Mr. Webster’s private life, I’m sure.” This change in the venue, as the lawyers say, and this impudent assumption that Mrs. Atkins had been admiring Mr. Webster’s private life, were both highly characteristic of the good Fernando. His remark was not prompted by even the pale esthetic anti-slavery, which he sometimes indulged in, but by the simple desire to say something which he knew would aggravate the lady. And Mrs. Atkins was aggravated, for she colored and fanned herself nervously. “I don’t know what you refer to, Mr. Witherlee,” she remarked, pettishly.