Flora held the parrot up to the cage, and said, “Bon jour, jolie Manon!”

“Bon jour!” repeated the bird, and hopped upon her perch.

After they had entered the carriage, Flora said:  “How melancholy it seems that everybody is gone, except Jolie Manon!  How glad the poor thing seemed to be to see me!  I wish I could take her home.”

“I will send to inquire whether the lady will sell her,” replied her friend.

“O Mamita, you will spoil me, you indulge me so much,” rejoined Flora.

Mrs. Delano smiled affectionately, as she answered:  “If you were very spoilable, dear, I think that would have been done already.”

“But it will be such a bother to take care of Manon,” said Flora.

“Our new servant Chloe can do that,” replied Mrs. Delano.  “But I really hope we shall get home without any further increase of our retinue.”

From the clerk information was obtained that he heard Mr. Duroy tell Mr. Bruteman that a lady named Rosabella Royal had sailed to Europe with Signor and Madame Papanti in the ship Mermaid.  He added that news afterward arrived that the vessel foundered at sea, and all on board were lost.

With this sorrow on her heart, Flora returned to Boston.  Mr. Percival was immediately informed of their arrival, and hastened to meet them.  When the result of their researches was told, he said:  “I shouldn’t be disheartened yet.  Perhaps they didn’t sail in the Mermaid.  I will send to the New York Custom-House for a list of the passengers.”

Flora eagerly caught at that suggestion; and Mrs. Delano said, with a smile:  “We have some other business in which we need your help.  You must know that I am involved in another slave case.  If ever a quiet and peace-loving individual was caught up and whirled about by a tempest of events, I am surely that individual.  Before I met this dear little Flora, I had a fair prospect of living and dying a respectable and respected old fogy, as you irreverent reformers call discreet people.  But now I find myself drawn into the vortex of abolition to the extent of helping off four fugitive slaves.  In Flora’s case, I acted deliberately, from affection and a sense of duty; but in this second instance I was taken by storm, as it were.  The poor woman was aboard before I knew it, and I found myself too weak to withstand her imploring looks and Flora’s pleading tones.”  She went on to describe the services Chloe had rendered to Rosa, and added:  “I will pay any expenses necessary for conveying this woman to a place of safety, and supplying all that is necessary for her and her children, until she can support them; but I do not feel as if she were safe here.”

“If you will order a carriage, I will take them directly to the house of Francis Jackson, in Hollis Street,” said Mr. Percival.  “They will be safe enough under the protection of that honest, sturdy friend of freedom.  His house is the depot of various subterranean railroads; and I pity the slaveholder who tries to get on any of his tracks.  He finds himself ‘like a toad under a harrow, where ilka tooth gies him a tug,’ as the Scotch say.”