and she wished me to authorise her to
take possession of one of her father's houses that had been confiscated,
he being a wealthy Rebel, then in the Confederacy, and actively engaged in
the Rebellion.

The girl was a perfect blonde in complexion: her hair was of a very
pretty, light shade of brown, and perfectly straight; her eyes a clear,
honest gray; and her skin as delicate and fair as a child's. Her manner
was modest and ingenuous, and her language indicated much intelligence.

Considering these circumstances, I think I was justified in wheeling
around in my chair and indulging in an unequivocal stare of incredulous
amazement, when in the course of conversation she dropped a remark about
having been born a slave.

"Do you mean to tell me," said I, "that you have negro blood in your
veins?" And I was conscious of a feeling of embarrassment at asking a
question so apparently preposterous.

"Yes," she replied, and then related the history of her life, which I
shall repeat as briefly as possible.

"My father," she commenced, "is Mr. Cox, formerly a judge of one of the
courts in this city. He was very rich, and owned a great many houses here.
There is one of them over there," she remarked, naively, pointing to a
handsome residence opposite my office in Canal Street. "My mother was one
of his slaves. When I was sufficiently grown, he placed me at school at
the Mechanics' Institute Seminary, on Broadway, New York. I remained there
until I was about fifteen years of age, when Mr. Cox came on to New York
and took me from the school to a hotel, where he obliged me to live with
him as his mistress; and to-day, at the age of twenty-one, I am the mother
of a boy five years old who is my father's son. After remaining some time
in New York, he took me to Cincinnati and other cities at the North, in
all of which I continued to live with him as before. During this sojourn
in the Free States, I induced him to give me a deed of manumission; but on
our return to New Orleans he obtained it from me, and destroyed it. At
this time I tried to break off the unnatural connection, whereupon he
caused me to be publicly whipped in the streets of the city, and then
obliged me to marry a colored man; and now he has run off, leaving me
without the least provision against want or actual starvation, and I ask
you to give me one of his houses that I may have a home for myself and
three little children."

Strange and improbable as this story app