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.
Judge Livingstone, with his clerical friend from the North, arrived at the appointed time at Ingleside; he a bachelor of thirty-five, to wed this beautiful heiress, the exquisite flower that had budded and bloomed like a rose for twenty-six seasons. Arrived to lacerate the old slavish hearts, that clung so helplessly to the young mistress, like morning glories around the fair flower. Arrived to snatch from Ingleside so rudely its life, its hope, its promise—the all in all to poor Clarissa and old Ned. "Eben ole Jube knows dat sumfing solemkolly is ergwine to happin," observed Clarissa to her young mistress, as she assisted the bride in her adornments for the nuptial hour. "Jess look at dat ole fafeful dorg a lyin dare jess a strugglin wid his moshuns, lak he was a humans sho nuff."
The minister stood at the little altar in the parlor. The ring that Alice had given to "Arthur" was slipped upon her finger, and in the presence of the angels, Judge Livingstone and Alice were made man and wife. As Ned and Clarissa passed out of the little verandah, Ned observed with streaming eyes, "Now Clarsy, dere is no mo music fur us but de crickets upon de hath. Miss Alice has dun und sung her las hime und we kaint foller Miss Alice whar she is ergwine no mo. Ef we uns is tuk sick we kaint holler fur Miss Alice no mo. I feels lak I haint got no frend now. Miss Alice dun jined hersef to dat furriner."
"Dat is Gords truf Ned," exclaimed Clarissa as she drew her old checked apron across her eyes, "Hit pears lak dere is nuffin in dis wurrel epseps tribulashun of sperits. But bress her dear heart," the old negro continued, "I hope she may be jes es happy es de larks down in de medder, und dat when she arrivs way ober yander whar she is er gwine she will send her membrunces to me und yu fortwid."
It was necessary that Ingleside should be placed in first class order. Above all things else it was necessary that ample provision should be made for Clarissa and Ned. These arrangements in minutest detail were satisfactorily made, as the Judge observed to his bride one morning after the wedding, "Do you not grieve to part from your old friends, my dear?"
Tears came into the sweet girl's eyes as she replied so tenderly, "Yes, yes, they cling so helplessly to me, but dear Arthur, you will not forget them, will you?"
[THE END.]