He got no further, for his wife’s patience gave out; and, leaving her cakes to burn black, she turned to him with a face glowing like her stove, and cried out: “Lisha, ain’t you got no heart? can you remember what Hepsey told us, and call them poor, long-sufferin’ creeters names? Can you think of them wretched wives sold from their husbands; them children as dear as ourn tore from their mothers; and old folks kep slavin eighty long, hard years with no pay, no help, no pity, when they git past work? Lisha Wilkins, look at that, and say no ef you darst!” Mrs. Wilkins was a homely woman in an old calico gown, but her face, her voice, her attitude were grand, as she flung wide the door of the little back bedroom. and pointed with her tin spatula to the sight beyond. Only Hepsey sitting by a bed where lay what looked more like a shrivelled mummy than a woman. Ah! but it was that old mother worked and waited for so long: blind now, and deaf; childish, and half dead with many hardships, but safe and free at last; and Hepsey’s black face was full of a pride, a peace, and happiness more eloquent and touching than any speech or sermon ever uttered. Mr. Wilkins had heard her story, and been more affected by it than he would confess: now it came home to him with sudden force; the thought of his own mother, wife, or babies torn from him stirred him to the heart, and the manliest emotion he had ever known caused him to cast his pipe at his feet, put on his hat with an energetic slap, and walk out of the house, wearing an expression on his usually wooden face that caused his wife to clap her hands and cry exultingly: “I thought that would fetch him!” Then she fell to work like an inspired woman; and at noon a sumptuous dinner “smoked upon the board;” the children were scrubbed till their faces shone; and the room was as fresh and neat as any apartment could be with the penetrating perfume of burnt flapjacks still pervading the air, and three dozen ruffled nightcaps decorating the clothes-lines overhead. “Tell me the instant minute you see Pa a comin’, and I’ll dish up the gravy,” was Mrs. Wilkins’s command, as she stepped in with a cup of tea for old “Harm,” as she called Hepsey’s mother. “He’s a comin’, Ma!” called Gusty, presently. “No, he ain’t: it’s a trainer,” added Ann Lizy. “Yes, ’tis Pa! oh, my eye! ain’t he stunnin’!” cried Wash, stricken for the first time with admiration of his sire. Before Mrs. Wilkins could reply to these conflicting rumors her husband walked in, looking as martial as his hollow chest and thin legs permitted, and, turning his cap nervously in his hands, said half-proudly, half-reproachfully: “Now, Cynthy, be you satisfied?” “Oh, my Lisha! I be, I be!” and the inconsistent woman fell upon his buttony breast weeping copiously.