eas. "Well, well, the whip, no doubt, can
revive exhausted powers. And that is how you look upon such deeds!--you,
who would not crush a worm in the garden, think this is right and just!"

It suddenly struck Melissa that Andreas, too, had once been a slave,
and the feeling that she had hurt him grieved her to the heart. She had
often heard him speak sternly and gravely, but never in scorn as he did
now, and that, too, distressed her; and as she could not think of the
right thing to say in atonement for the wrong she had done, she could
only look up with tearful entreaty and murmur, "Forgive me!"

"I have nothing to forgive," he replied in an altered tone. "You have
grown up among the unjust who are now in power. How should you see more
clearly than they, who all walk in darkness? But if the light should
be shown to you by one to whom it hath been revealed, it would not be
extinguished again.--Does it not seem a beautiful thing to you to live
among none but brethren and sisters, instead of among oppressors and
their scourged victims; or is there no place in a woman's soul for the
holy wrath that came upon Moses the Hebrew? But who would ever have
spoken his great name to you?"

Melissa was about to interrupt his vehement speech, for, in a town where
there were so many Jews, alike among the citizens and the slaves, even
she had heard that Moses had been their lawgiver; but he prevented her,
by adding hastily: "This only, child, I would have you remember--for
here is the ferry--the worst ills that man ever inflicts on his
fellow-man are the outcome of self-interest; and, of all the good he may
do, the best is the result of his achieving self-forgetfulness to secure
the happiness and welfare of others."

He said no more, for the ferry-boat was about to put off, and they had
to take their places as quickly as possible.

The large flat barge was almost unoccupied; for the multitude still
lingered in the town, and more than one seat was empty for the weary
girl to rest on. Andreas paced to and fro, for he was restless; but
when Melissa beckoned to him he came close to her, and, while he leaned
against the little cabin, received her assurance that she now quite
understood his desire to see all slaves made free. He, if any one, must
know what the feelings of those unhappy creatures were.

"Do I not know!" he exclaimed, with a shake of the head. Then, glancing
round at the few persons who were sitting at the other end of the