This side conversation was interrupted by Mr. King’s saying:  “Blumenthal, you haven’t asked for news concerning Mrs. Fitzgerald.  You know Mr. Green has been a widower for some time.  Report says that he finds in her company great consolation for the death of her cousin.”

“That’s what I call a capital arrangement,” said Flora; “and I didn’t mean any joke about their money, either.  Won’t they sympathize grandly?  Won’t she be in her element?  Top notch.  No end to balls and parties; and a coat of arms on the coach.”

“The news made me very glad,” observed Rosa; “for the thought of her loneliness always cast a shadow over my happiness.”

“Even they have grown a little during the war,” rejoined Mr. King.  “Nabob Green, as they call him, did actually contribute money for the raising of colored regiments.  He so far abated his prejudice as to be willing that negroes should have the honor of being shot in his stead; and Mrs. Fitzgerald agreed with him.  That was a considerable advance, you must admit.”

They went on for some time talking over news, public and private; not omitting the prospects of Tom’s children, and the progress of Tulee’s.  But such family chats are like the showers of manna, delicious as they fall, but incapable of preservation.

The first evening the families met at the house in Beacon Street, Mr. Blumenthal expressed a wish to see Henriet, and she was summoned.  The improvement in her appearance impressed him greatly.  Having lived three years with kindly and judicious friends, who never reminded her, directly or indirectly, that she was a black sheep in the social flock, her faculties had developed freely and naturally; and belonging to an imitative race, she readily adopted the language and manners of those around her.  Her features were not handsome, with the exception of her dark, liquid-looking eyes; and her black hair was too crisp to make a soft shading for her brown forehead.  But there was a winning expression of gentleness in her countenance, and a pleasing degree of modest ease in her demeanor.  A map, which she had copied very neatly, was exhibited, and a manuscript book of poems, of her own selection, written very correctly, in a fine flowing hand.  “Really, this is encouraging,” said Mr. Blumenthal, as she left the room.  “If half a century of just treatment and free schools can bring them all up to this level, our battles will not be in vain, and we shall deserve to rank among the best benefactors of the country; to say nothing of a corresponding improvement in the white population.”

“Thitherward is Providence leading us,” replied Mr. King.  “Not unto us, but unto God, be all the glory.  We were all of us working for better than we knew.”

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