commission, too,
down in Georgia, that I should like to go and do."

"What is that?"

"Well,--it's a long story and a sad one: but there was a poor Yankee
surgeon with the army in Circassia--a Southerner, and a very good
fellow; and he had taken a fancy to some coloured girl at home--poor
fellow, he used to go half mad about her sometimes, when he was
talking to me, for fear she should have been sold--sent to the New
Orleans market, or some other devilry; and what could I say to comfort
him? Well, he got his mittimus by one of Schamyl's bullets; and when
he was dying, he made me promise (I hadn't the heart to refuse) to
take all his savings, which he had been hoarding for years for no
other purpose, and see if I couldn't buy the girl, and get her away to
Canada. I was a fool for promising. It was no concern of mine; but the
poor fellow wouldn't die in peace else. So what must be, must."

"Oh, go! go!" said Mary. "You will let him go, Doctor Thurnall, and
see the poor girl free? Think how dreadful it must be to be a slave."

"I will, my little Miss Mary; and for more reasons than you think of.
Little do you know how dreadful it is to be a slave."

"Hum!" said Mark Armsworth. "That's a queer story. Tom, have you got
the poor fellow's money? Didn't lose it when you were taken by those
Tartars?"

"Not I. I wasn't so green as to carry it with me. It ought to have
been in England six months ago. My only fear is, it's not enough."

"Hum!" said Mark. "How much more do you think you'll want?"

"Heaven knows. There is a thousand dollars; but if she be half as
beautiful as poor Wyse used to swear she was, I may want more than
double that."

"If you do, pay it, and I'll pay you again. No, by George!" said Mark,
"no one shall say that while Mark Armsworth had a balance at his
bankers' he let a poor girl--" and, recollecting Mary's presence, he
finished his sentence by sundry stamps and thumps on the table.

"You would soon exhaust your balance, if you set to work to free all
poor girls who are in the same case in Georgia," said the Doctor.

"Well, what of that? Them I don't know of, and so I ain't responsible
for them; but this one I do know of, and so--there, I can't argue;
but, Tom, if you want the money, you know where to find it."

"Very good. By the by--I forgot it till this moment--who should come
down in the coach with me but the lost John Briggs."

"He is come too late, then," said the Doctor. "His poor father