Hark! Was that the sing-song voice of the auctioneer He was selling the cattle. High and low, caressing an menacing, he teased and exhorted them to buy. The were bidding, yes, for the possession of souls, bidding in the currency of the Great Republic. And between the eager shouts came a moan of sheer despair. What was the attendant doing now? He was tearing two of then: from a last embrace. Three--four were sold while Stephen was in a dream Then came a lull, a hitch, and the crowd began to chatter gayly. But the misery in front of him held Stephen in a spell. Figures stood out from the group. A white-haired patriarch, with eyes raised to the sky; a flat-breasted woman whose child was gone, whose weakness made her valueless. Then two girls were pushed forth, one a quadroon of great beauty, to be fingered. Stephen turned his face away,--to behold Mr. Eliphalet Hopper looking calmly on. "Wal, Mr. Brice, this is an interesting show now, ain't it? Something we don't have. I generally stop here to take a look when I'm passing." And he spat tobacco juice on the coping. Stephen came to his senses. "And you are from New England?" he said. Mr. Hopper laughed. "Tarnation!" said he, "you get used to it. When I came here, I was a sort of an Abolitionist. But after you've lived here awhile you get to know that niggers ain't fit for freedom." Silence from Stephen. "Likely gal, that beauty," Eliphalet continued unrepressed. "There's a well-known New Orleans dealer named Jenkins after her. I callate she'll go down river." "I reckon you're right, Mistah," a man with a matted beard chimed in, and added with a wink: "She'll find it pleasant enough--fer a while. Some of those other niggers will go too, and they'd rather go to hell. They do treat 'em nefarious down thah on the wholesale plantations. Household niggers! there ain't none better off than them. But seven years in a cotton swamp,--seven years it takes, that's all, Mistah." Stephen moved away. He felt that to stay near the man was to be tempted to murder. He moved away, and just then the auctioneer yelled, "Attention!" "Gentlemen," he cried, "I have heah two sisters, the prope'ty of the late Mistah Robe't Benbow, of St. Louis, as fine a pair of wenches as was ever offe'd to the public from these heah steps--" "Speak for the handsome gal," cried a wag. "Sell off the cart hoss fust," said another. The auctioneer turned to the darker sister: "Sal ain't much on looks, gentlemen," he said, "but she's the best nigger for work Mistah Benbow had." He seized her arm and squeezed it, while the girl flinched and drew back. "She's solid, gentlemen, and sound as a dollar, and she kin sew and cook. Twenty-two years old. What am I bid?"