ke them abroad, where merit and ability will give them entrance
into the best circles of art, literature, and science."

After this conversation Leroy and his wife went North, and succeeded in
finding a good school for their children. In a private interview he
confided to the principal the story of the cross in their blood, and,
finding him apparently free from racial prejudice, he gladly left the
children in his care. Gracie, the youngest child, remained at home, and
her mother spared no pains to fit her for the seminary against the time
her sister should have finished her education.

CHAPTER XI.

THE PLAGUE AND THE LAW.

Years passed, bringing no special change to the life of Leroy and his
wife. Shut out from the busy world, its social cares and anxieties,
Marie's life flowed peacefully on. Although removed by the protecting
care of Leroy from the condition of servitude, she still retained a deep
sympathy for the enslaved, and was ever ready to devise plans to
ameliorate their condition.

Leroy, although in the midst of slavery, did not believe in the
rightfulness of the institution. He was in favor of gradual
emancipation, which would prepare both master and slave for a moral
adaptation to the new conditions of freedom. While he was willing to
have the old rivets taken out of slavery, politicians and planters were
devising plans to put in new screws. He was desirous of having it ended
in the States; they were clamorous to have it established in the
Territories.

But so strong was the force of habit, combined with the feebleness of
his moral resistance and the nature of his environment, that instead of
being an athlete, armed for a glorious strife, he had learned to drift
where he should have steered, to float with the current instead of nobly
breasting the tide. He conducted his plantation with as much lenity as
it was possible to infuse into a system darkened with the shadow of a
million crimes.

Leroy had always been especially careful not to allow his children to
spend their vacations at home. He and Marie generally spent that time
with them at some summer resort.

"I would like," said Marie, one day, "to have our children spend their
vacations at home. Those summer resorts are pleasant, yet, after all,
there is no place like home. But," and her voice became tremulous, "our
children would now notice their social isolation and inquire the cause."
A faint sigh arose to the lips of Leroy, as she add