He responded pleasantly--for he had become familiar with such moods--that he had found a new romance which he would read. It was not a long story, but a thrilling one, and based upon the simple narrative of Joseph in bondage. The outline was true, the details were fabulous, and the old lady marvelled that a theme so trite could be so well embellished. He read far into the night, and she bade him leave the book upon her table, that she might peruse it again. "It is manuscript," he said, "and this is the only copy." "Why, Paul," she said, "how came you by it?" "I wrote it myself." Paul was indeed the author, having filled in the sorrows of his hero from his own experiences. Mrs. Everett was loud in its praises; she was sure that it indicated genius, and she lay awake that night meditating an act of charity and of justice. She would make a free man of Paul, and he should find in far lands that equality which he could not obtain in his own. They would journey together. He should have means and advantages, and become her protege and heir. But the strong self-love defeated this resolve. If Paul were not bound to her by law, he might forsake her, and she could not bear to lose him, for he had become a part of her heart; but when she broached the matter, Paul gave his parole never to leave her without consent. He was still a slave, with the taint of a trampled race in his blood, and he said nothing to Mrs. Everett of his origin. They crossed the seas; they dwelt in pleasant places, beneath soft skies; and Paul grew in knowledge. But his patron was still harassed by some deep remorse. She hurried him from city to city like the fabled apostate, and at length fell sick in London, on the eve of their return to America. Paul gleaned from her ravings in delirium the cause of her unrest. Wait had made known to her on the night of his decease the secret of the young man's origin, and had conjured her to do justice to the lad. Her self-love had deterred her in consummating this duty, and conscience had therefore tortured her. She was enabled to reach New York, where she left the preacher's son the bulk of her property, and received his gratitude and forgiveness before she died. Paul was free--haunted no longer by premonitions of future suffering; and his first impulse was to return to the Eastern shore and discover his desolate parents. His recollections of them were imperfect. He preserved many trifling circumstances, though more important events were forgotten; but as he made his way to the old village his heart beat high. There were the negro quarters, the cornfields, the twisting fences, and, at last, the shady stone parsonage--recollections they seemed of objects beheld in a foggy dream. They directed him to the Methodist Church--a prim, square structure in the centre of the village--a tavern on one side, a court-house and market on the other; and when the sexton threw open a window, the bleared light fell upon a marble slab set in the wall: