pearing as if he felt that he had committed a crime
in having failed to catch the meaning of her remark.

"Oh, it amounted to nothing."

He stupidly accepted this decree, and smoothing out the letter and
folding it again, requested that he might be permitted to take it home;
and with this reply she gladdened him: "I intended that you should."

At evening old Gid came, with many a snort and many a noisy stamp at the
dogs prancing upon the porch. Into the library he bustled, puffing and
important, brisk with the air of business. "John," he said, as he sat
down, "the last bale of my cotton has been hauled to the landing. It
will be loaded to-night and to-morrow morning I'm going with it down to
New Orleans; and I gad, I'll demand the last possible cent, for it's the
finest staple I ever saw."

"I thought you were going to bunch in and sell with me," the Major
replied.

"I intended to, John, but you see I'm too far ahead of you to wait. I
don't like to discount my industry by waiting. The truth is, I want the
money as soon as I can get it. I am chafing to discharge my debts. It
may be noble to feel and acknowledge the obligations of friendship, but
the consciousness of being in debt, a monied debt, even to a friend, is
blunting to the higher sensibilities and hampering to the character.
Now, you've never been in debt, and therefore you don't know what
slavery is."

"What! I've owed fifty thousand dollars at a time."

"Yes, but you had a way of getting out from under it, John. We don't
deserve any credit for paying a debt if it comes easy, if it's natural
to us. Why, a man with the faculty of getting out from under a debt is
better off and is more to be envied than the man who has never known
what it is to walk under a weight of obligations, for to throw off the
burden brings him a day of real happiness, while the more prudent and
prosperous person is acquainted merely with contentment. You've had a
good time in your life, John. On many an occasion when other men would
have been at the end of the string you have reached back, grabbed up
your resources and enjoyed them. Yes, sir. And you have more education
than I have, but you can never hope to rival me in wisdom."

The Major was standing on the hearth, and leaning his head back against
the mantel-piece, he laughed; and from Mrs. Cranceford's part of the
house came the impatient slam of a door.

"It's a fact, John. And within me there is just enough of rascality to