Everett treated him more considerately
afterward; and many times, as he looked up from a long silence, he
found her regarding him inquisitively. She asked him strange questions
once, bearing upon his early life, and he was almost encouraged to
reveal the secret of his birth; but she seemed to divine his purpose,
and changed the theme. Something troubled her, he knew; and when he
applied himself to conciliate and cheer her, at those moments she
suffered most. Had she loved the stern, ambitious man whose closed
chamber still chilled her mansion? Was it because she was childless,
and travelling graveward? Or did she cherish a mother's feeling for
Paul, and wish that he was of her race, and worthy to be her son?
Toward each of these theories he inclined, favoring the last, and
finally he concluded that she did not love, but feared him. He had
grown tall and manly. An individual beauty, rather of mind than of
face, developed in him, and his mistress had been prodigal of favors,
so that his dress and ornaments corresponded with his person. He
might have ruled, rather than served in her dwelling; but content with
the recognition of his equality, he maintained the same modest guise,
and his mistress felt an uneasy pride in his promotion. One day he
found her weeping, and when he spoke she answered bitterly:

"Paul, you have ceased to love me; you are ungrateful; you wish to be
free--you would leave me!"

He responded pleasantly--for he had become familiar with such
moods--that he had found a new romance which he would read. It was not
a long story, but a thrilling one, and based upon the simple narrative
of Joseph in bondage. The outline was true, the details were fabulous,
and the old lady marvelled that a theme so trite could be so well
embellished. He read far into the night, and she bade him leave the
book upon her table, that she might peruse it again.

"It is manuscript," he said, "and this is the only copy."

"Why, Paul," she said, "how came you by it?"

"I wrote it myself."

Paul was indeed the author, having filled in the sorrows of his hero
from his own experiences. Mrs. Everett was loud in its praises; she
was sure that it indicated genius, and she lay awake that night
meditating an act of charity and of justice. She would make a free man
of Paul, and he should find in far lands that equality which he could
not obtain in his own. They would journey together. He should have
means and advantages, and become her