“God bless my sweet Rose!” murmured the stranger. “This was an errand of mercy, indeed!” After a moment’s pause, he added aloud, “You need say no more, Daph;” and, as he spoke, he put out his hand to take that of the humble negro. She did not notice the movement; for she had lowered her eyes as she dropped her modest curtsy, and relapsed into silence. Diedrich Stuyvesant loved his daughter Rose, as the apple of his eye; but he thought her a little too enthusiastic in her desire to do good; and he trembled, lest her warm feelings should lead her judgment astray. When she had burst into his library that morning, her face flushed with excitement and unwonted exercise, he had met her with more than his usual calmness and phlegmatic consideration. The hasty outline she gave him of the story of her new protegé, seemed to him strange and improbable; but he could not resist the earnestness with which she besought him to hasten to the release of an innocent and injured woman. Rose felt a little relieved when she saw her father take his gold-headed cane and walk forth, with the deliberate air of one who has important business on hand. She would gladly have hurried his steps; but she knew, that, though slow and cautious, whatever he undertook would be kindly and wisely done, and in this belief she forced herself to wait patiently for his long-delayed return. Good Diedrich Stuyvesant did not go directly to the prison, as his daughter had advised. He first called on Dr. Bates, heard his pompous statement of the grounds of his suspicions, and received from him the troublesome gold chain, that was deemed of such importance. Having agreed to meet the little doctor at a certain hour, at the place of Daph’s imprisonment, he proceeded to the red house with the blue shutters, and inquired for Mrs. Ray. That personage was thrown into a fit of mortification to be found by so grand a gentleman in a dishabille, plainly intimating its recent proximity to the wash-tub; and her curiosity alone prevented her absolutely refusing to be seen in such a plight. It did not take Diedrich Stuyvesant many minutes to fathom Mrs. Ray, and to give to her mean and idle curiosity the contempt that even she herself felt that it deserved. “All accoutred as she was,” she found herself obliged to accompany her new acquaintance to the prison, where she and Dr. Bates occupied a room near that in which Daph had been placed, while Diedrich Stuyvesant proceeded to converse with the prisoner. The time seemed long to the little doctor; for he had the full benefit of all the vituperative epithets in Mrs. Ray’s vocabulary, which was by no means a limited one in that department. On him she vented all the dissatisfaction she felt at having been led “into,” as she exclaimed, “the worst, the very worst piece of business I ever put my finger in!” Daph had completed her story and was standing silent and humble, when Diedrich Stuyvesant summoned Dr. Bates and Mrs. Ray.