It was not in nature to look into that gay, handsome young face without pleasure, and Tom said heartily, “God bless you, Mas’r.”

Eva’s fancy for him had led her to petition her father that Tom might be her special attendant in her walks and rides.  He was called coachman, but his stable duties were a sinecure; struck with his good business capacity, his master confided in him more and more, till gradually all the providing for the family was entrusted to him.  Tom regarded his airy young master with an odd mixture of fealty, reverence and fatherly solicitude, and his friendship with Eva grew with the child’s growth; but his home yearnings grew so strong that he tried to write a letter—­so unsuccessfully that St. Clare offered to write for him, and.  Tom had the joy of receiving an answer from Master George, stating that Aunt Chloe had been hired out, at her own request, to a confectioner, and was gaining vast sums of money, all of which was to be laid by for Tom’s redemption.

About two years after his coming, Eva began to fail rapidly, and even her father could no longer deceive himself.  Eva was about to leave him.  It was Tom’s greatest joy to carry the frail little form in his arms, up and down, into the veranda, and to him she talked, what she would not distress her father with, of these mysterious intimations which the soul feels ere it leaves its clay for ever.  He lay, at last, all night in the veranda ready to rouse at the least call, and at midnight came the message.  Earth was passed and earthly pain; so solemn was the triumphant brightness of that face it checked even the sobs of sorrow.  A glorious smile, and she said, brokenly, “Oh—­love—­joy—­peace” and passed from death unto life.

Week after week glided by in the St. Clare mansion and the waves of life settled back to their usual flow where that little bark had gone down.  St. Clare was in many respects another man; he read his little Eva’s Bible seriously and honestly; he thought soberly of his relations to his servants, and he commenced the legal steps necessary to Tom’s emancipation as he had promised Eva he would do.  But, one evening while Tom was sitting thinking of his home, feeling the muscles of his brawny arms with joy as he thought how he would work to buy his wife and boys; his master was brought home dying.  He had interfered in an affray in a cafe and been stabbed.

He reached out and took Tom’s hand; he closed his eyes, but still retained his hold; for in the gates of eternity the black hand and the white hold each other with an equal grasp, and softly murmured some words he had been singing that evening—­words of entreaty to Infinite Pity.

IV.—­Freedom