The March of the Southern spring returned, wreathed with garlands, and its pathway strewn with flowers.  She gave warm kisses to the firs and pines as she passed, and they returned her love with fragrant sighs.  The garden at Magnolia Lawn had dressed itself with jonquils, hyacinths, and roses, and its bower was a nest of glossy greenery, where mocking-birds were singing their varied tunes, moving their white tail-feathers in time to their music.  Mrs. Fitzgerald, who was not strong in health, was bent upon returning thither early in the season, and the servants were busy preparing for her reception.  Chloe was rarely spared to go to the hidden cottage, where her attendance upon Rosa was no longer necessary; but Tom came once a week, as he always had done, to do whatever jobs or errands the inmates required.  One day Tulee was surprised to hear her mistress ask him whether Mr. Fitzgerald was at the plantation; and being answered in the affirmative, she said, “Have the goodness to tell him that Missy Rosy would like to see him soon.”

When Mr. Fitzgerald received the message, he adjusted his necktie at the mirror, and smiled over his self-complacent thoughts.  He had hopes that the proud beauty was beginning to relent.  Having left his wife in Savannah, there was no obstacle in the way of his obeying the summons.  As he passed over the cottage lawn, he saw that Rosa was sewing at the window.  He slackened his pace a little, with the idea that she might come out to meet him; but when he entered the parlor, she was still occupied with her work.  She rose on his entrance, and moved a chair toward him; and when he said, half timidly, “How do you do now, dear Rosa?” she quietly replied, “Much better, I thank you.  I have sent for you, Mr. Fitzgerald, to ask a favor.”

“If it is anything in my power, it shall be granted,” he replied.

“It is a very easy thing for you to do,” rejoined she, “and very important to me.  I want you to give me papers of manumission.”

“Are you so afraid of me?” he asked, coloring as he remembered a certain threat he had uttered.

“I did not intend the request as any reproach to you,” answered she, mildly; “but simply as a very urgent necessity to myself.  As soon as my health will permit, I wish to be doing something for my own support, and, if possible, to repay you what you expended for me and my sister.”

“Do you take me for a mean Yankee,” exclaimed he indignantly, “that you propose such an account of dollars and cents?”

“I expressed my own wishes, not what I supposed you would require,” replied she.  “But aside from that, you can surely imagine it must be painful to have my life haunted by this dreadful spectre of slavery.”

“Rosa,” said he earnestly, “do me the justice to remember that I did not purchase you as a slave, or consider you a slave.  I expended money with all my heart to save my best-beloved from misfortune.”