It was midnight. Charlie and Louise were locked in the sound sleep of youth and vigorous health; but Daph, with the half-wakefulness of a faithful dog, was not so dead to the outer world.

A slight knock, and then a stealthy footstep, roused the negro, and she started up and looked about her. In the dim moonlight she saw Mary Ray standing at her bedside, with her finger on her lips, and herself setting the example in every motionless limb, of the silence she imposed.

Mary took Daph by the hand, and[Pg 191] led her into the hall, and then said in a whisper,

“I could not go without bidding you good-bye, you have always been so kind to me?”

Daph looked in wonder at the slender young girl, wrapped in her shawl, and carrying a small bundle in her hand.

“Where is you going, Mary?” she said, anxiously; “it’s no good is takin’ you from home at this time of night.”

“I can bear it no longer,” said Mary, with quiet determination; “I have never had a home, and now I am going to look for one for myself. Mother may find out that, if I am ‘only a girl,’ she will miss me. Good-bye,[Pg 192] Daph. I should like to kiss the children once more, but I am afraid I should wake them. Good-bye!” and the young girl shook the hand of her humble friend.

The hand she had given was not so easily released; it was held gently but firmly as if in a vice.

“Ise wont let you go—go straight to black sin,” said Daph, earnestly; “you’s a leavin’ the mother the great Lord gave you; you’s a leavin’ the home the great Lord put you in, and there’s black sin a waitin’ outside for you, if you go so young and lone; Ise will not let you go!”

“I cannot bear it any longer,” said Mary, and she sank down on the floor, and wiped away her fast-flowing tears.

[Pg 193]Mary had of late had a hard life, indeed. Mrs. Ray had been slowly coming to a knowledge of herself, and this knowledge, instead of bringing repentance and reformation, had made her doubly unreasonable and irritable, and on Mary she had vented all her ill-humor.

Though still treated as a child, Mary had become, in feeling and strength of character, a woman. The sense of injustice and ill-treatment, which had grown with her growth, had now reached its height. The down-trodden child, now felt herself a curbed, thwarted, almost persecuted woman, and she was determined to bear her present life no longer.

[Pg 194]It was in vain that Daph plead with her to give up her wild purpose; at last all the poor negro’s store of persuasion and warning was exhausted, and in her despair, she said desperately, “Now you Mary jus sit still here, and let Daph tell you somewhat dat do be all solemn true, ebery single word.” Daph had been no inattentive listener to Rose’s frequent reading of the Saviour’s life on earth; and now, in her own simple, graphic language, she sketched the outline of his patient suffering, and painful, unresisted death. She told of the glory of His heaven, where those who humbly follow Him, shall rejoice forever; and the speaker and the listener forgot the dreary place and the[Pg 195] midnight hour, as she dwelt in faith on that glorious theme. “Dere’ll be nobody dere, Mary, dat turns de back on de work de Lord gibs em to do!” said Daph, earnestly. “Stay, Mary, and try to bear for de Lord Jesus’ sake! Who knows but your poor ma, her own self, may learn to know bout de heavenly home?”

“Every human heart has its trials, which it can only bear in the strength that God alone can give. Every human heart feels the need of comfort and hope, which can only be found in God’s truth.”

Mary Ray was touched by the simple eloquence of her humble friend, and acted upon by the glorious motives[Pg 196] held out to her for new efforts of forbearance and patient endurance.

The world she had known was dreary and dismal enough; but what terrors, trials, and temptations might not await her in the new scenes into which she was hastily rushing. Subdued ............