"One word mo, missis, und den I'm dun. I wants jes one little drap o' prayer, pleas'm." Alice knelt reverently at the bed and tenderly prayed that the old negro might be accepted as a child of the King--a royal son of a Royal Father, whose kingdom was above all thrones and principalities, and from everlasting to everlasting. "Und now, Clarsy," said old Ned, "yer stan rite dere, und Miss Alice yer stan whar yer is, und hear me swar dis ofe: 'I, Ned Semo, does swar und kiss dis little bible ob ole missusses' who's dun und gon to hebben, dat nebber mo' will I lif my mouf nur my han nur my hart in mischuf agen ole marser und young Miss Alice, so help me Gawd!" Let us believe that the recording angel in the heavenly court has engrossed this oath in a never-fading holograph in his journal, and that whenever the sacred tome is read as witnessing the good there is in the creature, the word "approve" shall appear upon the margin. CHAPTER XV. THE BLACK DIPLOMAT. Alice was persevering in those little attentions to the sick negro that were operating in a salutary way upon his heart. What power, however rebellious or unfriendly, could withstand the charm of that fragrant life?--a life so redundant in acts of charity and benevolence, that carried its dispensations into the cabins of the poor freedmen to whom the authorities under reconstruction made so many promises--promises to the ear to be broken to the hope. The old negro's sympathies now and then for his master and young mistress would die down into ashes, and then again, when he looked toward Ingleside and thought of its defenceless inmates, his feelings would be grateful and kind. In all the years that were gone, his old master and mistress had been so kind to him, in sickness and health; they had clothed and fed him; without their assistance he would have been so helpless. Indeed, Ned had never felt the rigors or oppression of slavery in this household or upon this plantation. Old master's government was patriarchal, and emancipation had come so inopportunely; somehow it never appealed to the affections, or the love of the old negroes, but it came upon them as other great crises have come--with arguments and reinforcements that shattered every principle of manhood and bestialized their natures. It came with proclamations against the universally denounced crime of slavery, and with an energetically centralized power; and the old negroes, unable to reason intelligently from premises so false and enticing, forgot their loyalty to their friends and looked to the carpet-bagger for a new revelation. The lovely girl was always happy when ministering to the sick, even in the huts of destitution and squalor. She was happy when she pressed Uncle Ned's wrinkled brow and felt that the consuming fever had been driven out of his system by medication and faithful nursing.