For the sake of Ensal's reputation for poise, already a little shaken, we fear, we fain would draw the curtain just here; but as we have all along sought to tell the whole truth about matters herein discussed, we will have to allow our hero's reputation to take care of itself the best way it can. Without obtaining any more consent than that which was plainly written in Tiara's eyes, and without any pretense at delivering any one of the many thousand little preliminary speeches framed for the occasion, Ensal bent forward and kissed Tiara!
Now that he has by this act lost favor with you, dear reader, we shall expose him to the utmost!
Dropping one of Tiara's hands, an arm stole around her waist, and Ensal kissed her again and, sad to say, again, and, vexing thought, again. And to cap the climax, the two were joyfully married that night, and on the next day set out for Africa, to provide a home for the American Negro, should the demented Eunice prove to be a wiser prophet than the hopeful, irrepressible Earl; should the good people of America, North and South, grow busy, confused or irresolute and fail, to the subversion of their ideals, to firmly entrench the Negro in his political rights, the denial of which, and the blight incident thereto, more than all other factors, cause the Ethiopian in America to feel that his is indeed "The Hindered Hand."
THE END
NOTES FOR THE SERIOUS.
1. The author of The Hindered Hand was an eyewitness of the driving of "Little Henry" to his death by the officers of the law.
2. The details of the Maulville burning were given the author by an eyewitness of the tragedy, a man of national reputation among the Negroes. Some of the more revolting features of that occurrence have been suppressed for decency's sake. We would have been glad to eliminate all of the details, but they have entered into the thought-life of the Negroes, and their influence must be taken into account.
3. The experiences of Eunice upon being assigned to membership in the Negro race are by no means overdrawn. The refined, cultured and most highly respected young woman whose actual experiences form the groundwork of that part of the story was not only thus accosted and insulted by a white man of the order indicated, but was actually beaten in a most brutal manner and fined fifteen dollars in the police court.