ar, for setting me
right."

"You do really try to be provoking," said Marie.

"O, come, Marie, the day is growing warm, and I have just had a long
quarrel with Dolph, which has fatigued me excessively; so, pray be
agreeable, now, and let a fellow repose in the light of your smile."

"What's the matter about Dolph?" said Marie. "That fellow's impudence
has been growing to a point that is perfectly intolerable to me. I
only wish I had the undisputed management of him a while. I'd bring him
down!"

"What you say, my dear, is marked with your usual acuteness and good
sense," said St. Clare. "As to Dolph, the case is this: that he has so
long been engaged in imitating my graces and perfections, that he has,
at last, really mistaken himself for his master; and I have been obliged
to give him a little insight into his mistake."

"How?" said Marie.

"Why, I was obliged to let him understand explicitly that I preferred to
keep _some_ of my clothes for my own personal wearing; also, I put his
magnificence upon an allowance of cologne-water, and actually was so
cruel as to restrict him to one dozen of my cambric handkerchiefs. Dolph
was particularly huffy about it, and I had to talk to him like a father,
to bring him round."

"O! St. Clare, when will you learn how to treat your servants? It's
abominable, the way you indulge them!" said Marie.

"Why, after all, what's the harm of the poor dog's wanting to be like
his master; and if I haven't brought him up any better than to find his
chief good in cologne and cambric handkerchiefs, why shouldn't I give
them to him?"

"And why haven't you brought him up better?" said Miss Ophelia, with
blunt determination.

"Too much trouble,--laziness, cousin, laziness,--which ruins more souls
than you can shake a stick at. If it weren't for laziness, I should have
been a perfect angel, myself. I'm inclined to think that laziness is
what your old Dr. Botherem, up in Vermont, used to call the 'essence of
moral evil.' It's an awful consideration, certainly."

"I think you slaveholders have an awful responsibility upon you," said
Miss Ophelia. "I wouldn't have it, for a thousand worlds. You ought to
educate your slaves, and treat them like reasonable creatures,--like
immortal creatures, that you've got to stand before the bar of God with.
That's my mind," said the good lady, breaking suddenly out with a tide
of zeal that had been gaining strength in her mind all the morning.

"O! come,