as a woman should
speak? And even the fire?--Have not women been martyrs already?
and could not I be one? Might not my torments madden a people into
manhood, and my name become a war-cry in the sacred fight? And yet,
oh my friend, life is sweet!--and my little day has been so dark and
gloomy!--may I not have one hour's sunshine, ere youth and vigour are
gone, and my swift-vanishing Southern womanhood wrinkles itself
up into despised old age? Oh, counsel me,--help me, my friend, my
preserver, my true master now, so brave, so wise, so all-knowing;
under whose mask of cynicism lies hid (have I not cause to know it?)
the heart of a hero.

"MARIE"

If Miss Heale could have watched Tom's face as he read, much more
could she have heard his words as he finished, all jealousy would have
passed from her mind: for as he read, the cynical smile grew sharper
and sharper, forming a fit prelude for the "Little fool!" which was
his only comment.

"I thought you would have fallen in love with some honest farmer
years ago: but a martyr you shan't be, even if I have to send for you
hither; though how to get you bread to eat I don't know. However, you
have been reading your book, it seems,--clever enough you always were,
and too clever; so you could go out as governess, or something. Why,
here's a postscript dated three months afterwards! Ah, I see; this
letter was written last July, in answer to my Australian one. What's
the meaning of this?" And he began reading again.

"I wrote so far; but I had not the heart to send it: it was so full
of repinings. And since then,--must I tell the truth?--I have made a
step; do not call it a desperate one; do not blame me, for your blame
I cannot bear: but I have gone on the stage. There was no other means
of independence open to me; and I had a dream, I have it still, that
there, if anywhere, I might do my work. You told me that I might
become a great actress: I have set my heart on becoming one; on
learning to move the hearts of men, till the time comes when I can
tell them, show them, in living flesh and blood, upon the stage, the
secrets of a slave's sorrows, and that slave a woman. The time has not
come for that yet here: but I have had my success already, more than I
could have expected; and not only in Canada, but in the States. I have
been at New York, acting to crowded houses. Ah, when they applauded
me, how I longed to speak! to pour out my whole soul to them, and call
upon them, as me