But if time has only strewed the path of Minnie with flowers, and ripened the promised beauty of her childhood, it has borne a heavy hand upon the destiny of the La Croix family.

La Croix is dead; but before his death he took the precaution to have Louis emancipated, and then made him a joint heir with his daughter.  The will he entrusted to the care of Camilla; but the deed of emancipation he placed in the hands of Miriam, saying, “Here are your free papers, and here are Louis’.  There is nothing in this world sure but death; and it is well to be on the safe side.  Some one might be curious enough to search out his history; and if there should be no legal claim to his freedom, he might be robbed of both his liberty and his inheritance; so keep these papers, and if ever the hour comes when you or he should need them, you must show me.”

Miriam did as she was bidden; but her heart was lighter when she knew that freedom had come so near her and Louis.

Le Croix, before his death, had sold the greater part of his slaves, and invested the money in Northern bonds and good Northern securities.  Camilla had married a gentleman from the North, and is living very happily upon the old plantation.  She does not keep an overseer, and tries to do all in her power to ameliorate the condition of her slaves; still she is not satisfied with the system, and is trying to prepare her slaves for freedom, by inducing them to form, as much as possible, habits of self-reliance, and self-restraint, which they will need in the freedom which she has determined they shall enjoy as soon as she can arrange her affairs to that effect.  But she also has to proceed with a great deal of caution.

The South is in a state of agitation and [foment?].  The air is laden with rumors of a [rising?] conflict between the North and the South, and any want of allegiance to Southern opinions is punished either as a crime if the offender is a man, or with social ostracism and insult if a woman.

The South in the palmy days of her pride and power would never tolerate any heresy to her creed, whose formula of statement might have been written we believe in the divine right of the Master, to take advantage of the weakness, ignorance, and poverty of the slave; that might makes right, and that success belongs to the strongest arm.[1]

Some of her former friends were beginning to eye her with coldness and suspicion because she would not join in their fanatical hatred of the North and because she would profess her devotion to the old flag, while they were ready to spit upon and trample it under foot.

Her adopted brother was still in the North, and strange to say he did not share her feelings; his sympathies were with the South, and although he was too young to take any leading part in the events there about to transpire, yet year after year when he spent his vacations at home, he attended the hustings and political meetings, and there he learned to consider the sentiment, “My country right or wrong,” as a proper maxim for political action.