An old French gentleman, a white man, once rich, whom Toussaint had known, was reduced to poverty and fell sick. For several months Toussaint and his wife, Juliette, sent him a nicely cooked dinner; but Toussaint would not let him know from whom it came, “because,” said the negro, “it might hurt his pride to know it came from a black man.” Juliette once called on this invalid to learn if her husband could be of any help. “O no,” said the old Monsieur, “I am well known; I have good friends; every day they send me a dinner, served up in French style. To-day I had a charming vol-au-vent, an omelette, and green peas, not to speak of salmon. I am a person of some importance, you see, even in this strange land.” And Juliette would go home, and she and Toussaint would have a good laugh over the old man’s vauntings.[1] But what has possessed me to enter into all these details! I know not, unless it is the desire to escape from less agreeable thoughts. I have a request to make, Henry. You will think me fanciful, foolish, perhaps fanatical; and yet I am impelled, by an unaccountable impression, to ask you to give up the tickets you tell me you have engaged in the Pontiac, and to take passage for New Orleans in some other boat. If you ask me _why_, the only explanation I can give is, that the thought besets me, but the reason of it I do not know. Do you remember I once capriciously refused to let your father go in the cars to Springfield, although his baggage was on board? Those cars went through the draw-bridge, and many lives were lost. Write me that you will heed my request. And now, Henry, son, nephew, friend, good by! Tell little Clara she has an aunt or grandmother (which, shall it be?) in New York who loves to think of her and to picture the fair forehead over which the little curl you sent me once fell. By the way, I have examined her photograph with a microscope, and have conceived a fancy that her eyes are of a slightly different color; one perhaps a gray and the other a mixed blue. Am I right? Tell your wife how I grieve to think that circumstances have not allowed us to meet and become personally acquainted. You now know all the influences that have kept us apart, and that have made me seem frigid and ungrateful, even when my heart was overflowing with affection. What more shall I say, except to sum up all my love for you and all my gratitude in the one parting prayer, Heaven bless you and yours! Your mother, EMILY CHARLTON. CHAPTER III. THE WOLF AND THE LAMB. “Bitten by rage canine of dying rich; Guilt’s blunder! and the loudest laugh of hell!” _Young._