rturned the carriage, to the
serious discomposure of the ladies' nerves, and at the cost of his
situation.

A coachman discharged under such circumstances is not in the best
position for procuring employment at his calling, and uncle Wellington,
under the pressure of need, was obliged to seek some other means of
livelihood. At the suggestion of his friend Mr. Johnson, he bought a
whitewash brush, a peck of lime, a couple of pails, and a hand-cart, and
began work as a whitewasher. His first efforts were very crude, and for
a while he lost a customer in every person he worked for. He
nevertheless managed to pick up a living during the spring and summer
months, and to support his wife and himself in comparative comfort.

The approach of winter put an end to the whitewashing season, and left
uncle Wellington dependent for support upon occasional jobs of unskilled
labor. The income derived from these was very uncertain, and Mrs. Braboy
was at length driven, by stress of circumstances, to the washtub, that
last refuge of honest, able-bodied poverty, in all countries where the
use of clothing is conventional.

The last state of uncle Wellington was now worse than the first. Under
the soft firmness of aunt Milly's rule, he had not been required to do a
great deal of work, prompt and cheerful obedience being chiefly what was
expected of him. But matters were very different here. He had not only
to bring in the coal and water, but to rub the clothes and turn the
wringer, and to humiliate himself before the public by emptying the tubs
and hanging out the wash in full view of the neighbors; and he had to
deliver the clothes when laundered.

At times Wellington found himself wondering if his second marriage had
been a wise one. Other circumstances combined to change in some degree
his once rose-colored conception of life at the North. He had believed
that all men were equal in this favored locality, but he discovered
more degrees of inequality than he had ever perceived at the South. A
colored man might be as good as a white man in theory, but neither of
them was of any special consequence without money, or talent, or
position. Uncle Wellington found a great many privileges open to him at
the North, but he had not been educated to the point where he could
appreciate them or take advantage of them; and the enjoyment of many of
them was expensive, and, for that reason alone, as far beyond his reach
as they had ever been. When he o