s, may be
considered a flaw in the character of this singularly pure and noble
man.

Some years after the circumstance related above, a young friend
was living with us who had a hired white girl for a nurse. I soon
discovered that she was an unprincipled, saucy girl; but she was smart
enough to get on the "blind side" of this young mother, by nursing the
babe (as she thought) admirably well. When I could no longer put up
with her encroachments, I took the girl to one side, and laid down the
law; whereupon the enraged creature was excessively impertinent. After
finding that my dear little friend had not the moral courage to dismiss
the girl (which she might have done, for I offered to take care of the
baby myself until another could be procured), I suppressed my emotions,
and bore it as well as I could. From reasons of consideration for my
husband, who seemed much wearied that evening after returning home from
business, I concluded not to consult him about what was best to be done
until next morning, when, upon hearing the particulars of this little
episode in domestic life, he arose in great haste, and so excited as
scarcely to be able to get into his clothes. I begged him to be calm,
but there was no calmness for him until he got hold of the girl, ran
her down two flights of stairs, and out of the door into the street,
having ordered her, in no very measured terms, never again to cross his
threshold.

In the course of his whole life, I witnessed but one (or perhaps
two) other instances of like impetuosity. They were rare, indeed, and
always immediately followed, as in the cases above referred to, by his
usual calmness and good humor, no trace being left of the storm within,
save a subdued smile, which had in it more of shame than triumph. I
have been told that, in his counting-room, he has occasionally produced
a sensation by like demonstrations, caused, in every case, by the
entrance of some person who, not knowing the stuff he was made of,
would venture to make an attack upon the character of some friend of
his; or, perhaps, would make a few insidious remarks, "just to put Mr.
Charless on his guard." But the slanderous intruder would soon find out
the quicker he was outside of the store the better for him, much to the
astonishment, and amusement, too, of his partners and clerks, who, but
for those rare flashes of temper, and an occasional "stirring up" of a
milder sort among the boys in the store, could not be made