“It will annoy Lily-mother very much,” said he, “and on that account I regret it; but so far as I am myself concerned, it would in some respects be a relief to me to get out of the false position in which I find myself.  Grandfather Bell has always grumbled about the expense I have been to him in consequence of my father’s loss of fortune, and of course that adds to the unpleasantness of feeling that I am practising a fraud upon him.  He is just now peculiarly vexed with me for leaving Northampton so suddenly.  He considers it an unaccountable caprice of mine, and reproaches me with letting Eulalia slip through my fingers, as he expresses it.  Of course, he has no idea how it cuts me.  This state of things is producing a great change in my views.  My prevailing wish now is to obtain an independent position by my own exertions, and thus be free to become familiar with my new self.  At present, I feel as if there were two of me, and that one was an impostor.”

“I heartily approve of your wish to rely upon your own resources,” replied Mr. King; “and I will gladly assist you to accomplish it.  I have already said you should be to me as a son, and I stand by my word; but I advise you, as I would an own son, to devote yourself assiduously to some business, profession, or art.  Never be a gentleman of leisure.  It is the worst possible calling a man can have.  Nothing but stagnation of faculties and weariness of soul comes of it.  But we will talk about your plans hereafter.  The urgent business of the present moment is to obtain some clew to your missing brother.  My conscientious wife will suffer continual anxiety till he is found.  I must go to New Orleans and seek out Mr. Bruteman, to ascertain whether he has sold him.”

“Bruteman!” exclaimed the young man, with sudden interest.  “Was he the one who seized that negro woman and the child?”

“Yes,” rejoined Mr. King.  “But why does that excite your interest?”

“I am almost ashamed to tell you,” replied Gerald.  “But you know I was educated in the prejudices of my father and grandfather.  It was natural that I should be proud of being the son of a slaveholder, that I should despise the colored race, and consider abolition a very vulgar fanaticism.  But the recent discovery that I was myself born a slave has put me upon my thoughts, and made me a little uneasy about a transaction in which I was concerned.  The afternoon preceding Mrs. Green’s splendid ball, where I first saw my beautiful Rose-mother, two fugitive slaves arrived here in one of grandfather’s ships called ’The King Cotton.’  Mr. Bruteman telegraphed to grandfather about them, and the next morning he sent me to tell Captain Kane to send the slaves down to the islands in the harbor, and keep them under guard till a vessel passed that would take them back to New Orleans.  I did his errand, without bestowing upon the subjects of it any more thought or care than I should have done upon two bales of cotton.  At parting, Captain Kane