mination of an inferior and degraded
people, who were set to rule hereditary freemen ere they had themselves
scarce ceased to be slaves.

When Tryon had finished the article, which seemed to him a
well-considered argument, albeit a trifle bombastic, he threw the book
upon the table. Finding the armchair wonderfully comfortable, and
feeling the fatigue of his journey, he yielded to a drowsy impulse,
leaned his head on the cushioned back of the chair, and fell asleep.
According to the habit of youth, he dreamed, and pursuant to his own
individual habit, he dreamed of Rena. They were walking in the
moonlight, along the quiet road in front of her brother's house. The
air was redolent with the perfume of flowers. His arm was around her
waist. He had asked her if she loved him, and was awaiting her answer
in tremulous but confident expectation. She opened her lips to speak.
The sound that came from them seemed to be:--

"Is Dr. Green in? No? Ask him, when he comes back, please, to call at
our house as soon as he can."

Tryon was in that state of somnolence in which one may dream and yet be
aware that one is dreaming,--the state where one, during a dream,
dreams that one pinches one's self to be sure that one is not dreaming.
He was therefore aware of a ringing quality about the words he had just
heard that did not comport with the shadowy converse of a dream--an
incongruity in the remark, too, which marred the harmony of the vision.
The shock was sufficient to disturb Tryon's slumber, and he struggled
slowly back to consciousness. When fully awake, he thought he heard a
light footfall descending the stairs.

"Was there some one here?" he inquired of the attendant in the outer
office, who was visible through the open door.

"Yas, suh," replied the boy, "a young cullud 'oman wuz in jes' now,
axin' fer de doctuh."

Tryon felt a momentary touch of annoyance that a negro woman should
have intruded herself into his dream at its most interesting point.
Nevertheless, the voice had been so real, his imagination had
reproduced with such exactness the dulcet tones so dear to him, that he
turned his head involuntarily and looked out of the window. He could
just see the flutter of a woman's skirt disappearing around the corner.

A moment later the doctor came bustling in,--a plump, rosy man of fifty
or more, with a frank, open countenance and an air of genial good
nature. Such a doctor, Tryon fancied, ought to enjoy a wide