hat as he stood before it for a moment with bowed head. But for the
mercy of God, he might have been one of those whose deaths as well as
deeds were thus commemorated.

Beyond this memorial, impressive in its pure simplicity, and between
it and the gate, in an obtrusively conspicuous spot stood a florid
monument of granite, marble and bronze, of glaring design and
strangely out of keeping with the simple dignity and quiet restfulness
of the surroundings; a monument so striking that the colonel paused
involuntarily and read the inscription in bronze letters on the marble
shaft above the granite base:

"'_Sacred to the Memory of
Joshua Fetters and Elizabeth Fetters, his Wife._

"'_Life's work well done,
Life's race well run,
Life's crown well won,
Then comes rest._'"

"A beautiful sentiment, if somewhat trite," said the colonel, "but an
atrocious monument."

"Do you think so?" exclaimed the lady. "Most people think the monument
fine, but smile at the sentiment."

"In matters of taste," returned the colonel, "the majority are always
wrong. But why smile at the sentiment? Is it, for some reason,
inappropriate to this particular case? Fetters--Fetters--the name
seems familiar. Who was Fetters, Laura?"

"He was the speculator," she said, "who bought and sold negroes, and
kept dogs to chase runaways; old Mr. Fetters--you must remember old
Josh Fetters? When I was a child, my coloured mammy used him for a
bogeyman for me, as for her own children."

"'Look out, honey,' she'd say, 'ef you ain' good, ole Mr. Fettuhs 'll
ketch you.'"

Yes, he remembered now. Fetters had been a character in Clarendon--not
an admirable character, scarcely a good character, almost a bad
character; a necessary adjunct of an evil system, and, like other
parasites, worse than the body on which he fed; doing the dirty work
of slavery, and very naturally despised by those whose instrument he
was, but finding consolation by taking it out of the Negroes in the
course of his business. The colonel would have expected Fetters to lie
in an unmarked grave in his own back lot, or in the potter's field.
Had he so far escaped the ruin of the institution on which he lived,
as to leave an estate sufficient to satisfy his heirs and also pay for
this expensive but vulgar monument?

"The memorial was erected, as you see from the rest of the
inscription, 'by his beloved and affectionate son.' That either loved
the other no one susp