, Roxy, pore Jack!'"

The bird flew and struck, and sang a little, very niggardly, and so, as
the lights in the west sank and faded, the shiftless lover continued in
vain to seek to give the bird one note more than the magician, his
master, had taught.

The stars modestly appeared in the soft heavens, and Princess Anne
gathered its roofs together like a camp of camels in the desert, and,
with an occasional bleat or bark or human sound, seemed dozing out the
soft fall night, absorbed, perhaps, in the spreading news of Mrs.
Custis's death and Vesta's wedding-journey, that had to be taken at
last.

"Miss Virgie," said the woman Mary--ten years her senior, but comely
still--"have you ever loved like me? Oh, I had a kind husband, and,
helpless as I was, I tried to love once more. Maybe it was a sin."

"I love my mistress as if she was myself," Virgie said; "I feel as if,
in heaven, before we came here, I was with her, Mary! I love her father,
too, as if he was not my master, but my friend. Oh, how I love them all!
But what can I do to show my love--poor naked slave that I am? They say
they will soon set me free. Mary, how do people feel when they are
free?"

"They don't appreciate it," sighed Mary. "They go and put themselves in
captivity again, like selfish things: they falls in love."

"But to love and be free!" Virgie said, her bosom glowing in the thought
till her rich eyes seemed to shed warmth and starlight on her
companion's face; "to give your own free love to some one and feel him
grateful for it: what a gift and what a joy is that! He might be
thankful for it, and, seeing how pure it was, he might respect me."

"Who is it, Virgie?" Mary said.

"Whoever would love me like a white girl!" the ardent slave softly
exclaimed. "It must be some one who does not despise me. I hear Miss
Vesta's beau, Master William, read the beautiful service, with his
sweet, submissive face, and I think to myself, 'How freely he might have
my heart to comfort his if he would take it like a gentleman!' I would
be his slave to make him happy, if he could love me purely, like my
mother! Oh, my mother, whose name I do not know! where is the tie that
fastens me to heaven? Did my father love me?"

"Pore Jack! pore Jack! Sing 'Roxy, Roxy, Roxy,' Tom!" coaxed Wonnell
above to the sleepy bird.

"Whoever was your father, Virgie, your mother's love for you was pure.
God makes the wickedest love their children, because he is the Father to