"That is close by, I will drive you to the door, and you must ask leave to bring him to see me, Chloe;" and impressing a kiss on the face of the sleeping child, she resigned him to his nurse.
Rose sat rocking to and fro in her small parlor, in a loose muslin wrapper, and little lace cap, languid from the excitement of the previous day, thinking of Gertrude, and wishing she had but a tithe of that indomitable energy to which obstacles only served as stimulants; and then Gertrude was talented, what had she but her pretty face? and that, alas! had brought her only misery!
"Come in," said Rose, in answer to a slight tap on the door.
"Ah, sit down, Gertrude. Chloe has just carried Charley away, and I am quite alone."
"I must make a sketch of that ebony Venus, some day," said Gertrude.
"I confess," said she, as she seated herself in Rose's little rocking-chair, "to a strong penchant for the African. His welling sympathies, his rollicksome nature, and his punctilious observance of etiquette in his intercourse with his fellows, both amuse and interest me.
"Your genuine African has dancing in his heels, cooking at his fingers' ends, music on his lips, and a trust in Providence for the supply of his future wants equaled only by the birds of the air.
"He dances and prays with a will, nor thinks the two inconsistent, as they are not. You should have gone with me, Rose, to an African church not long since. I had grown weary of fine churches, and superfine ministers, and congregations so polished that they had the coldness as well as the smoothness of marble. I wearied of tasseled prayer-books, with gilt clasps, and all the mummeries which modern religionists seem to have substituted for true worship.
"So I wandered out into the by-streets and poor places to find nature, rough and uncultivated though it might be. A tumble-down looking church, set among some old tenement-houses, caught my eye. Bareheaded children were hanging round the door, scarcely kept in abeyance by a venerable-looking negro sexton in the porch, with grizzled locks and white neckerchief, whose admonitory shakes of the head habit had evidently made second nature, as he bestowed them promiscuously, right and left, till service was closed.