tle
grace in her movements that I cannot resist admiring, and yet loathe.
This is strange. Why is the girl so constantly in my thoughts? Yesterday
I spoke to Mrs. Harrington about her, for my curiosity became
irresistible. She is a slave, a new purchase of Gen. Harrington's, and
the personal servant of his wife. Mrs. Harrington smiled in her usual
contented way, and gently complained of the girl's uselessness and
studied inattention, but she seems unused to opposition of any kind, and
languidly allows even her servants to control her wishes. This fiery
slave--for, with all her stillness, she _is_ fiery--overpowers the
gentle nature of her mistress, and really seems to drink up her strength
with the glances of those great black eyes.

"How indifferent proud men sometimes are to the beauty of their
inferiors! now, this girl Zillah is constantly charming even my
half-repulsed admiration by her rare loveliness, yet I have scarcely
seen General Harrington turn his eyes upon her face during the whole
time that I have been in his house, but then, his devotion to Mrs.
Harrington is so perfect, he evidently has no eyes for any one else.

"How long is it since I opened my journal? Three months, I really
believe, and not a word of record. Even now, when the world becomes more
real, I feel like one aroused very softly from dreaming among the
angels. How would I write and see emblazoned upon paper, doomed,
perhaps, frail as it is, to outlive me, thoughts that even yet are so
intangible, that, like the butterflies that I used to run after when a
child, they are constantly eluding my grasp, and as constantly
brightening all the atmosphere around me. Is it possible that so many
weeks have gone by since _he_ came home? It seems like a prolonged
sunset, when the summer is in prime, and one trembles to see a single
tint fade from the sky, or a single flower overshadowed, lest it should
depart forever. Can it be this heavenly atmosphere which imparts to the
whole being a languor so delightful, mingled with that sweet unrest
which only wakes you to a keener relish of existence? I have been
striving to interrogate my own heart, and ask many questions which it
cannot answer, because the whole world here is so new and strange, that
it is impossible to discriminate between the luxurious sweetness of
material life and those quieter impulses that I have known hitherto.

"I remember the delight with which I first looked out upon this lovely
sce