Clara suddenly put down her veil. Approaching slowly like a fate, rolled on the splendid barouche of Mr. Ratcliff. He sat with arms folded and was smoking a cigar. Clara fancied she saw arrogance, hate, disappointment, rage, all written in his countenance. Without moving his arms, he bowed carelessly to Onslow. “That’s one of the prime managers of the secession movement.” “So I should think,” said Clara; but Onslow detected nothing equivocal in the tone of the remark. Having escorted her to the door of Miss Tremaine’s parlor, he bowed his farewell, and Clara went in. Laura had not yet returned. CHAPTER XXVII. DELIGHT AND DUTY. “According to our living here, we shall hereafter, by a hidden concatenation of causes, be drawn to a condition answerable to the purity or impurity of our souls in this life: that silent Nemesis that passes through the whole contexture of the universe, ever fatally contriving us into such a state as we ourselves have fitted ourselves for by our accustomary actions. Of so great consequence is it, while we have opportunity, to aspire to the best things.”—_Henry More_, A.D. 1659. It may seem strange that Onslow and Kenrick, differing so widely, should renew the friendship of their boyhood. We have seen that Onslow, allowing the æsthetic side of his nature to outgrow the moral, had departed from the teachings of his father on the subject of slavery. Kenrick, in whom the moral and devotional faculty asserted its supremacy over all inferior solicitings, also repudiated _his_ paternal teachings; but they were directly contrary to those of his friend, and, in abandoning them, he gave up the prospect of a large inheritance. To Onslow, these thick-lipped, woolly-headed negroes,—what were they fit for but to be hewers of wood and drawers of water to the gentle and refined? It was monstrous to suppose that between such and him there could be equality of any kind. The ethnological argument was conclusive. Had not Professor Moleschott said that the brain of the negro contains less phosphorus than that of the white man? Proof sufficient that Cuffee was expressly created to pull off my boots and hoe in my cotton-fields, while I make it a penal offence to teach him to read! Onslow, too, had been fortunate in his intercourse with slaveholders. Young, handsome, and accomplished, he had felt the charm of their affectionate hospitality. He had found taste, culture, and piety in their abodes; all the graces and all the amenities of life. What wonder that he should narcotize his moral sense with the aroma of these social fascinations! Even at the North, where the glamour they cast ought not to distort the sight, and where men ought healthfully to look the abstract abomination full in the face, and testify to its deformity,—how many consciences were drugged, how many hearts shut to justice and to mercy!