se to go.

"Father!" he said then, "perhaps you will care to know that I do not
return to my old command, but have been commissioned to raise a brigade
from the freedmen."

Both father and mother knew the awful peril of this service, and both
cried, half in suffering, half in anger, "This is your wife's work!"
while his father added, with a passionate exclamation, "It is right,
quite right, that you should identify yourself with her people. Well, go
your way. You have made your bed; lie in it."

The blood flushed into Surrey's face. He opened his lips, and shut them
again. At last he said, "Father, will you never forego this cruel
prejudice?"

"Never!" answered his mother, quickly. "Never!" repeated his father,
with bitter emphasis. "It is a feeling that will never die out, and
ought never to die out, so long as any of the race remain in America.
She belongs to it, that is enough."

Surrey urged no further; but with few words, constrained on their
part,--though under its covering of pride the mother's heart was
bleeding for him,--sad and earnest on his, the farewell was spoken, and
they watched him out of the room. How and when would they see him again?

There was one other call upon his time. The day was wearing into the
afternoon, but he would not neglect it. This was to see his old
_protege_, Abram Franklin, in whom he had never lost interest, and for
whose welfare he had cared, though he had not seen him in more than two
years. He knew that Abram was ill, had been so for a long time, and
wished to see him and speak to him a few friendly and cheering
words,--sure, from what the boy's own hand had written, that this would
be his last opportunity upon earth to so do.

Thus he went on from his father's stately palace up Fifth Avenue, turned
into the quiet side street, and knocked at the little green door. Mrs.
Franklin came to open it, her handsome face thinner and sadder than of
old. She caught Surrey's hand between both of hers with a delighted cry:
"Is it you, Mr. Willie? How glad I am to see you! How glad Abram will
be! How good of you to come!" And, holding his hand as she used when he
was a boy, she led him up stairs to the sick-room. This room was even
cosier than the two below; its curtains and paper cheerfuller; its
furniture of quainter and more hospitable aspect; its windows letting in
more light and air; everything clean and homely, and pleasant for weary,
suffering eyes to look upon.

Abram was pr