“To whom are you speaking thus, sir! I can assure you, nothing is easier than for me to conceive how possible it is for any man to love your daughter. As respects Grace, I confess there, is a difference—for I affirm she has always seemed to me too saintly, too much allied to Heaven already, to be subject herself, to the passions of earth.”
“That is what I have just been telling you, and we must endeavour to overcome and humanize—if I may so express it—Grace's propensity. There is nothing more dangerous to a healthful frame of mind, in a religious point of view, Miles, than excitement—it is disease, and not faith, nor charity, nor hope, nor humility, nor anything that is commanded; but our native weaknesses taking a wrong direction, under a physical impulse, rather than the fruits of repentance, and the succour afforded by the spirit of God. We nowhere read of any excitement, and howlings and waitings among the apostles.”
How could I enlighten the good old man on the subject of my sister's malady? That Grace, with her well-tempered mind, was the victim of religious exaggeration, I did not for a moment believe; but that she had had her heart blighted, her affections withered, her hopes deceived, by Rupert's levity and interestedness, his worldly-mindedness and vanity, I could foresee, and was prepared to learn; though these were facts not to be communicated to the father of the offender. I made no answer, but managed to turn the conversation towards the farm, and those interests about which I could affect an interest that I was very far from feeling, just at that moment. This induced the divine to inquire into the result of my late voyage, and enabled me to collect sufficient fortitude to meet Grace, with the semblance of firmness, at least.
Mr. Hardinge made a preconcerted signal, as soon as he came in view of the house, that apprised its inmates of my arrival; and we knew, while still half a mile from the buildings, that the news had produced a great commotion. All the blacks met us on the little lawn—for the girls, since reaching womanhood, had made this change in the old door-yard—and I had to go through the process of shaking hands with every one of them. This was done amid hearty bursts of laughter, the mode in which the negroes of that day almost always betrayed their joy, and many a “welcome home, Masser Mile!” and “where a Neb got to, dis time, Masser Mile?” was asked by more than one; and great was the satisfaction, when I told his generation and race that the faithful fellow would be up with the cart that was to convey my luggage. But, Grace awaited me. I broke through the throng, and entered the house. In the door I was met by Chloe, a girl about my own sister's age, and a sort of cousin of Neb's by the half-blood, who had been preferred of late years to functions somewhat resembling those of a lady's maid. I say of the half-blood; for, to own the truth, few of the New York blacks, in that day, could have taken from their brothers and sisters, under the old dictum of the common law, which declared that none but heirs of the whole blood should inherit. Chloe met me in the door-way, and greeted me with one of her sweetest smiles, as she curtsied, and really looked as pleased as all my slaves did, at seeing their young master again. How they touched my heart, at times, by their manner of talking about “ole Masser, and ole Missus,” always subjects of regret among negroes who had been well treated by them. Metaphysicians may reason as subtly as they can about the races and colours, and on the aptitude of the black to acquire, but no one can ever persuade me out of the belief of their extraordinary aptitude to love. As between themselves and their masters, their own children and those of the race to which they were subject, I have often seen instances which have partaken of the attachment of the dog to the human family; and cases in which the children of their masters have been preferred to those of their own flesh and blood, were of constant occurrence.
“I hope you been werry well, sah, Masser Mile,” said Chloe, who had some extra refinement, as the growth of her position.
“Perfectly, my good girl, and I am glad to see you looking so well—you really are growing handsome, Chloe.”
“Oh! Masser Mile—-you so droll!—now you stay home, sah, long time?”
“I am afraid not, Chloe, but one never knows. Where shall I find my sister?”
“Miss Grace tell me come here, Masser Mile, and say she wish to see you in de family-room. She wait dere, now, some time.”
“Thank you, Chloe; and do you see that no one interrupts us. I have not seen my sister for near a year.”