g seen you before, but it is so long I can scarcely
remember it. Tell me all about myself and how I came to leave you. I
always thought that there was some mystery about me, but I never knew
what it was before, but now I understand it."

"Darling," said the mother, "you had better wait till you get a little
stronger, and then I will tell you all."

"Very well," said Minnie, "you have been so good to me and I am
beginning to love you so much."

It was touching to see the ripening love between those two
long-suffering ones. Ellen would comb Minnie's hair, and do for her
every office in her power. Still Minnie continued feeble. The suffering
occasioned by her refusal of Louis; the hard study and deep excitement
through which she had passed told sadly upon her constitution; but she
was young, and having a large share of recuperative power she slowly
came back to health and strength, and when the spring opened Thomas
decided that she should return again to her school in P.

Chapter XII

Let us now return to Carrie Wise, whom we left parting with Minnie.

"Where is Minnie?" said two of her schoolmates, who observed that
Carrie had come home alone.

"Oh," said she, "one of the strangest things I ever heard of happened!"

"Well, what was it?" said the girls; and by this time they had joined
another group of girls.

"Why this morning, Minnie and I walked out shopping, and just as I came
out of Carruthers' I met an old friend of mother's, and stopped to speak
with her, and I said 'Minnie, just wait a minute.'"

"She passed on, and left me talking with Mrs. Jackson. When I joined
her, I found a colored woman talking to her, and she was trembling from
head to foot, and just as pale as a ghost; and I said, 'Why, Minnie,
what is the matter?'"

"She gasped for breath, and I thought she was going to faint, and I got
real scared. And what do you think Minnie said?"

"Why," she said, "Carrie, this woman says she's my mother!"

"Her mother!" cried a half dozen voices. "Why you said she was colored!"

"Well, so she was. She was quite light, but I knew she was colored."

"How did you know? Maybe she was only a very dark-complexioned white
woman."

"Oh no, she wasn't, I know white people from colored, I've seen enough
of them."

"A colored woman! well that is very strange; but do tell us what Minnie
said."

"She asked her where she came from, and where she lived. She said she
came in yesterday with the Union so