“I thank you for making the slave’s duty so clear. You’re quite sure Dr. Palmer would approve your view?” “Entirely. All his preaching on the subject convinces me of it.” “And the woman, you think, who killed herself rather than be false to her husband, went straight to hell?” “I can hope nothing better for her. She must have been a poor heathen creature, wholly ignorant of Scripture. Paul commands slaves to obey; and the woman who wilfully violates his injunction does it at the peril of her soul.” Clara was silent; and Mrs. Gentry, felicitating herself on the powerful moral lesson adapted to her pupil’s “new sphere of duty,” resumed, “By the way, your master—” “Master!” shrieked Clara, running with upraised hands to Mrs. Gentry, as if to dash them down on her. Then suddenly checking herself, she said pleasantly: “You see I’m a little unused to the name. What were you going to say?” “Really, child, one would think you were out of your wits. It isn’t as if you were going to be consigned to a master who’d abuse you. There’s many a poor girl in our first society who’d be glad to be taken care of as you’ll be. Only think of it! Here’s a beautiful diamond ring for you. And here’s a check for five hundred dollars for you to spend in dresses, and you’re to have the selecting of them all yourself,—think of that!—under my superintendence of course; but Madame Groux tells me your taste is excellent, and I shall not interfere. ’T is now nine o’clock. We’ll drive out this very forenoon to see what there is in the shops; for Mr. Ratcliff may be here any hour now. Run and get ready, that’s a good girl. The carriage shall be here at half past ten.” Without touching, or even looking at, the ring, Clara ran up-stairs to her room, and, locking the door, knelt, with flushed, burning brow and brain, at a little _prie-dieu_ in the corner. She did not try to put her prayer in words, for the emotions which swelled within her bosom were all unspeakable. Clara was intellectually a mystic, but the current of her individualism was too strong to be diverted from its course by ordinary influences, whether from spirits _in_ or _out_ of the flesh. She was too positive to be constrained by other impulses than those which her own will, enlightened by her own reason, had generated. So, while she felt assured that angelic witnesses were round about her, and that her every thought “had a critic in the skies,”—and while she believed that, in one sense, nothing of mind or body was truly her own,—that she was but a vessel or recipient,—she keenly experienced the consciousness that she was a free, responsible agent. O mystery beyond all fathoming! O reconcilement of contrarieties which only Omnipotence could effect, and only Omnipotence can explain!