“Now, look here, Ellen,” said Mr. Walters. (He called her Ellen, for he had been long intimate with the family.) “If you can’t get on without the boy’s earning something, why don’t you do as white women and men do?  Do you ever find them sending their boys out as servants?  No; they rather give them a stock of matches, blacking, newspapers, or apples, and start them out to sell them.  What is the result?  The boy that learns to sell matches soon learns to sell other things; he learns to make bargains; he becomes a small trader, then a merchant, then a millionaire.  Did you ever hear of any one who had made a fortune at service?  Where would I or Ellis have been had we been hired out all our lives at so much a month?  It begets a feeling of dependence to place a boy in such a situation; and, rely upon it, if he stays there long, it will spoil him for anything better all his days.”

Mrs. Ellis was here compelled to add, by way of justifying herself, that it was not their intention to let him remain there permanently; his father only having given his consent for him to serve during the vacation.

“Well, don’t let him stay there longer, I pray you,” continued Walters.  “A great many white people think that we are only fit for servants, and I must confess we do much to strengthen the opinion by permitting our children to occupy such situations when we are not in circumstances to compel us to do so.  Mrs. Thomas may tell you that they respect their old servant Robberts as much as they do your husband; but they don’t, nevertheless—­I don’t believe a word of it.  It is impossible to have the same respect for the man who cleans your boots, that you have for the man who plans and builds your house.”

“Oh, well, Walters,” here interposed Mr. Ellis, “I don’t intend the boy to remain there, so don’t get yourself into an unnecessary state of excitement about it.  Let us hear what this great news is that you have brought.”

“Oh, I had almost forgotten it,” laughingly replied Walters, at the same time fumbling in his pocket for a letter, which he at length produced.  “Here,” he continued, opening it, “is a letter I have received from a Mr. Garie, enclosing another from our friend Winston.  This Mr. Garie writes me that he is coming to the North to settle, and desires me to procure them a house; and he says also that he has so far presumed upon an early acquaintance of his wife with Mrs. Ellis as to request that she will attend to the furnishing of it.  You are to purchase all that is necessary to make them comfortable, and I am to foot the bills.”

“What, you don’t mean Emily Winston’s husband?” said the astonished Mrs. Ellis.

“I can’t say whose husband it is, but from Winston’s letter,” replied Mr. Walters, “I suppose he is the person alluded to.”

“That is news,” continued Mrs. Ellis.  “Only think, she was a little mite of a thing when I first knew her, and now she is a woman and the mother of two children.  How time does fly.  I must be getting quite old,” concluded she, with a sigh.