“I mean it,” she said earnestly with a smile trembling on her lips. Her father was silent and pressed her hand for an answer. As they entered the gate of the home, they met young Harris coming out with some books under his arm. He bowed gracefully to them and passed on. “Oh! Papa, I had forgotten all about your fad for that young negro!” “Well, what of it, dear?” “You love me very much, don’t you?” she asked tenderly. “I’m going to ask you to be inconsistent, for my sake.” “That’s easy. I’m often that for nobody’s sake. Consistency is only the terror of weak minds.” “I’m going to ask you to keep that young negro out of the house when my Southern friends are here. After my sweetheart comes I expect Sallie and her mother. I wouldn’t have either of them to meet him here in our library and especially in our dining-room for anything on earth!” “Well, you have joined the rebels, haven’t you?” “You know I never did like negroes any way,” she continued. “They always gave me the horrors. Young Harris is a scholarly gentleman, I know. He is good-looking, talented, and I’ve played his music for him sometimes to please you, but I can’t get over that little kink in his hair, his big nostrils and full lips, and when he looks at me, it makes my flesh creep.” “Certainly, my darling, you don’t need to coax me. The Lowells, I suspect, know by this time what is due to a guest. When your guests come, our home and our time are theirs. If eating meat offends, we will live on herbs. I ’ll send Harris down to the other side of the district and keep him at work there until the end of the campaign. My slightest wish is law for him.” “You see, Papa,” she went on, “they never could understand that negro’s easy ways around our house, and I know if he were to sit down at our table with them they would walk out of the dining-room with an excuse of illness and go home on the first train.” “And yet,” returned her father lifting her from the carriage, “their homes were full of negroes were they not?” “Yes, but they know their place. I’ve seen those beautiful Southern children kiss their old black ‘Mammy.’ It made me shudder, until I discovered they did it just as I kiss Fido.” “And this a daughter of Boston, the home of Garrison and Sumner!” he exclaimed. “I’ve heard that Boston mobbed Garrison once,” she observed. “Yes, and I doubt if we have canonised Sumner yet. All right. If you say so, I ’ll order a steam calliope stationed at the gate and hire a man to play Dixie for you!” She laughed, and ran up the steps. * * * * * Sallie determined to keep the secret of her sorrow in her own heart. On the ocean voyage she had cried the whole first day, and then kissed her lover’s picture, put it down in the bottom of her trunk, brushed the tears away and determined the world should not look on her suffering.