,--

"Why, Uncle, they are human beings!"

"What did you suppose they were?" said he.

"Uncle," said she, "these cannot be slaves. Where do you suppose the
yokes are?"

"Now, Hattie," said he, "you were not so simple as to suppose that they
wore yokes, like wild cows and swine."

"Why," said she, "our papers are always telling about their being
'reduced to a level with brutes,' and every Sabbath since I was a child,
it seems to me, I have heard the prayer, 'Break every yoke!' Last Sabbath
our minister, you remember, said, 'Abraham was a slave-holder, David a
murderer, and Peter lied and swore.' Why, Uncle, these black people look
like gentlemen and ladies! If slave-holders are like murderers and
thieves, these cannot be their slaves!"

"Ask that elderly gentleman," said your Uncle. He was stopping for our
carriage to pass,--a portly man, with a ruffled shirt, and a
rich-looking cane, the end of which he kept on the ground, holding the
top of it at some distance from him.

"Please, sir, will you tell me if these are the slaves?" said Hattie.

He looked round, while he kept his arm and the top of his cane
describing large arcs of a circle.

"They are our colored people, Miss," said he, exchanging a smile with
your Uncle and me.

"Well, sir," said Hattie, more earnestly than before, "are they
slaves?"

He politely nodded assent, but was apparently interested by something
which caught his eye. He then took out a snuff-box, and, looking round
about him while opening it, said,--

"Some of them dress too much, Miss,--too much, altogether."

"Kid gloves of all colors," said Hattie, soliloquizing. "Red morocco
Bibles and hymn-books. What a white cloud of a turban! Part of the
choir, I take it,--those, with their singing-books. Elegant spruce young
fellow, isn't he, Aunt? with the violoncello. Venerable old couple,
there! over eighty, both of them. Well," continued Hattie, "I will give
up, if these are the slaves."

"Don't make up your mind too suddenly," said your Uncle; "you will see
other things."

"Uncle," said she, "what I have seen here in fifteen minutes shows me
that at least one half of that which I have learned at the North about
the slaves is false. Our novels and newspapers are all the time
misleading us."

"And yet," said your Uncle, "perhaps everything they say may be true by
itself; it may have happened."

"Why, Aunt," said she, "such a load is gone from my mind since looking
upon these colo