to
which she could always turn for shelter as to a brother's house.

"You seem so like a sister," he said, smoothing her soft brown hair,
"that I shall be sorry to lose you, and shall miss you so much, but Miss
Johnson thinks it right for you to go. Will you take Sam as an escort?"

"Oh, no, no; I don't want anybody," Adah cried, "Keep Sam with you, and
if in time I should earn enough to buy him, to free him. Oh, will you
sell him to me,--not to keep," she added, quickly, as she saw the
quizzical expression of Hugh's face,--"not to keep. I would not own a
slave--but to free, to tell him he's his own master. Will you, Hugh?"

He answered with a smile:

"I thought once as you do, that I would not own my brother, but we get
hardened to these things. I've never sold one yet."

"But you will. You'll sell me Sam," and Adah, in her eagerness, grasped
his hand.

"I'll give him to you," Hugh said. "Call him, Miss Johnson."

Alice obeyed, and Sam came hobbling in, listening in amazement to Hugh's
question.

"Would you like to be free, my boy?"

There was a sudden flush on the old man's cheek, and then he answered,
meekly:

"Thanky', Mas'r Hugh. It comed a'most too late. Years ago, when Sam was
young and peart, de berry smell of freedom make de sap bump through de
veins like trip-hammer. Den, world all before, now world all behind.
Nothing but t'other side of Jordan before. 'Bleeged to you, berry much,
but when mas'r bought ole Sam for pity, ole Sam feel in his bones that
some time he pay Mas'r Hugh; he don't know how, but it be's comin'. Sam
knows it. I'm best off here."

"But suppose I died, when I was so sick, what then?" Hugh asked, and Sam
replied:

"I thinks that all over on dem days mas'r so rarin'. I prays many times
that God would spar' young mas'r, and He hears ole Sam. He gives us back
our mas'r."

There were tears in Hugh's eyes, but he again urged upon him his
freedom, offering to give him either to Adah or Alice, just which he
preferred.

"I likes 'em both," Sam said, "but I likes Mas'r Hugh de best, 'case,
scuse me, mas'r, he ain't in de way, I feared, and Sam hope to help him
find it. Sam long's to Mas'r Hugh till dat day comes he sees ahead, when
he pays off de debt."

With another blessing on Mas'r Hugh Sam left the room.

"What can he mean about a coming day when he can pay his debt?" Hugh
asked, but Alice could not enlighten him.

Adah, however, after hesitating a moment, replied:

"Du