"Now misses I aint er sensing yer wid nun ob dis bad luck, und I aint er putting de jedge on er ekality wid de furrener in de penitenshur, but yer don't know misses what is ergwine to happen when de rope is er roun yer neck, und de furrener has got hold ob de tuther eend." "Dat yer don't," exclaimed Clarissa, rocking to and fro. "Und yer don't know missis whar me und Clarissa is ergwine when dat ar jedge gits to be de boss ob dis heer plantashun." "Oh my Lord," shouted Clarissa as she burst into tears. "Dats maks me ses wat I dos, yung missis, dat yu axes me a pinted questun. Dats de truf. It sho is." Old Ned groaned as the gravity of the argument seemed to affect him and brushed a tear from his eye with the sleeve of his coat. The matter was of momentous consequence to these old landmarks of a decayed civilization, and they felt it acutely. Old Master as long as he lived had held out the lighted candle to light up the dreary, tortuous paths into which reconstruction was driving the old negroes; but the flame had died down into cold ashes, and the hand that held it aloft was nerveless and dead. There came as it were to their old hearts a sad, sad refrain--"Breaking up! breaking up!" It came from the winds that moaned in and out of broken window shutters. It came from the feathered songsters, Prima Donnas of the air, who were sending forth their advance agents to secure homes in Southern climes. "Breaking up! breaking up!" Between such as these and their former masters were there not higher and holier feelings and relations than those of master and servant? Without them the South would have been the mere appurtenance of the commercial North, dragging after it the weary chain of colonial dependence. What a wilderness of wealth they brought to our firesides, what a teeming aggregation of populous and powerful states! Let us at least give these old slaves one look of kindness in the desolate twilight of their lingering days. The old negroes bade their young mistress a hearty good night. "May de angels shelter yer dis nite und all tuther nites wid dere whings, missis," exclaimed Ned as he followed Clarissa out of the door. It was the saddest of all anticipations. They loved Alice as if she were the apple of the eye--the heart's core. Their sufferings and privations, their joys and happiness in common, had touched as it were the two extremes of the varied horizon of life. And now they were advancing toward the parting of the ways. Ned and Clarissa, with unsteady, faltering footsteps toward the sunset, the gloaming, the end of life; the young mistress toward the sunrise, never so resplendent as now. * * * * *