“I’d like to keep you, my boy, but you see how I’m situated, I must either give up you or my business; the latter I cannot afford to do.”  With a great effort Charlie repressed his tears, and bidding them good morning in a choking voice, hastened from the room.

“It’s an infernal shame!” said Mr. Blatchford, indignantly; “and I shall think meanly of myself for ever for submitting to it; but I can’t help myself, and must make the best of it.”

Charlie walked downstairs with lingering steps, and took the direction of home.  “All because I’m coloured,” said he, bitterly, to himself—­“all because I’m coloured!  What will mother and Esther say?  How it will distress them—­they’ve so built upon it!  I wish,” said he, sadly, “that I was dead!” No longer able to repress the tears that were welling up, he walked towards the window of a print-store, where he pretended to be deeply interested in some pictures whilst he stealthily wiped his eyes.  Every time he turned to leave the window, there came a fresh flood of tears; and at last he was obliged to give way entirely, and sobbed as if his heart would break.

He was thus standing when he felt a hand laid familiarly on his shoulder, and, on turning round, he beheld the gentleman he had left in Mr. Blatchford’s office.  “Come, my little man,” said he, “don’t take it so much to heart.  Cheer up—­you may find some other person willing to employ you.  Come, walk on with me—­where do you live?” Charlie dried his eyes and gave him his address as they walked on up the street together.

Mr. Burrell talked encouragingly, and quite succeeded in soothing him ere they separated.  “I shall keep a look out for you,” said he, kindly; “and if I hear of anything likely to suit you, I shall let you know.”

Charlie thanked him and sauntered slowly home.  When he arrived, and they saw his agitated looks, and his eyes swollen from the effect of recent tears, there was a general inquiry of “What has happened?  Why are you home so early; are you sick?”

Charlie hereupon related all that had transpired at the office—­his great disappointment and the occasion of it—­to the intense indignation and grief of his mother and sisters.  “I wish there were no white folks,” said Caddy, wrathfully; “they are all, I believe, a complete set of villains and everything else that is bad.”

“Don’t be so sweeping in your remarks, pray don’t, Caddy,” interposed Esther; “you have just heard what Charlie said of Mr. Blatchford—­his heart is kindly disposed, at any rate; you see he is trammelled by others.”

“Oh! well, I don’t like any of them—­I hate them all!” she continued bitterly, driving her needle at the same time into the cloth she was sewing, as if it was a white person she had in her lap and she was sticking pins in him.  “Don’t cry, Charlie,” she added; “the old white wretches, they shouldn’t get a tear out of me for fifty trades!” But Charlie could not be comforted; he buried his head in his mother’s lap, and wept over his disappointment until he made himself sick.