We have purposely refrained from speaking of Mrs. P., lest any thing we should be willing to say respecting her, might seem to be adulation.  However, having alluded to her, we will say that it has seldom fallen to our lot to meet with her superior.

BREAKFAST AT MR. LONDON BOURNE’S.

After what has been said in this chapter to try the patience and irritate the nerves of the prejudiced, if there should be such among our readers, they will doubtless deem it quite intolerable to be introduced, not as hitherto to a family in whose faces the lineaments and the complexion of the white man are discernible, relieving the ebon hue, but to a household of genuine unadulterated negroes.  We cordially accepted an invitation to breakfast with Mr. London Bourne.  If the reader’s horror of amalgamation does not allow him to join us at the table, perhaps he will consent to retire to the parlor, whence, without fear of contamination, he may safely view us through the folding doors, and note down our several positions around the board.  At the head of the table presides, with much dignity, Mrs. Bourne; at the end opposite, sits Mr. Bourne—­both of the glossiest jet; the thick matted hair of Mr. B. slightly frosted with age.  He has an affable, open countenance, in which the radiance of an amiable spirit, and the lustre of a sprightly intellect, happily commingle, and illuminate the sable covering.  On either hand of Mr. B. we sit, occupying the posts of honor.  On the right and left of Mrs. B., and at the opposite corners from us, sit two other guests, one a colored merchant, and the other a young son-in-law of Mr. B., whose face is the very double extract of blackness; for which his intelligence, the splendor of his dress, and the elegance of his manners, can make to be sure but slight atonement!  The middle seats are filled on the one side by an unmarried daughter of Mr. B., and on the other side by a promising son of eleven, who is to start on the morrow for Edinburgh, where he is to remain until he has received the honors of Scotland’s far famed university.

We shall doubtless be thought by some of our readers to glory in our shame.  Be it so.  We did glory in joining the company which we have just described.  On the present occasion we had a fair opportunity of testing the merits of an unmixed negro party, and of determining how far the various excellences of the gentlemen and ladies previously noticed were attributable to the admixture of English blood.  We are compelled in candor to say; that the company of blacks did not fall a whit below those of the colored race in any respect.  We conversed on the same general topics, which, of course, were introduced where-ever we went.  The gentlemen showed an intimate acquaintance with the state of the colony, with the merits of the apprenticeship system, and with the movements of the colonial government.  As for Mrs. B., she presided at the table with great ease, dignity, self-possession, and grace.  Her