the lives of their children (we were three) as bright and pleasant as they could.  Our home was so happy.  We had a large number of servants, who were devoted to us.  I never had the faintest suspicion that there was any wrongfulness in slavery, and I never dreamed of the dreadful fate which broke in a storm of fearful anguish over our devoted heads.  Papa used to take us to New Orleans to see the Mardi Gras, and while there we visited the theatres and other places of amusement and interest.  At home we had books, papers, and magazines to beguile our time.  Perfectly ignorant of my racial connection, I was sent to a Northern academy, and soon made many friends among my fellow-students.  Companionship with girls of my own age was a new experience, which I thoroughly enjoyed.  I spent several years in New England, and was busily preparing for my commencement exercises when my father was snatched away—­died of yellow fever on his way North to witness my graduation.  Through a stratagem, I was brought hurriedly from the North, and found that my father was dead; that his nearest kinsman had taken possession of our property; that my mother’s marriage had been declared illegal, because of an imperceptible infusion of negro blood in her veins; and that she and her children had been remanded to slavery.  I was torn from my mother, sold as a slave, and subjected to cruel indignities, from which I was rescued and a place given to me in this hospital.  Doctor, I did not choose my lot in life, but I have no other alternative than to accept it.  The intense horror and agony I felt when I was first told the story are over.  Thoughts and purposes have come to me in the shadow I should never have learned in the sunshine.  I am constantly rousing myself up to suffer and be strong.  I intend, when this conflict is over, to cast my lot with the freed people as a helper, teacher, and friend.  I have passed through a fiery ordeal, but this ministry of suffering will not be in vain.  I feel that my mind has matured beyond my years.  I am a wonder to myself.  It seems as if years had been compressed into a few short months.  In telling you this, do you not, can you not, see that there is an insurmountable barrier between us?”

“No, I do not,” replied Dr. Gresham.  “I love you for your own sake.  And with this the disadvantages of birth have nothing to do.”

“You say so now, and I believe that you are perfectly sincere.  Today your friendship springs from compassion, but, when that subsides, might you not look on me as an inferior?”

“Iola, you do not understand me.  You think too meanly of me.  You must not judge me by the worst of my race.  Surely our country has produced a higher type of manhood than the men by whom you were tried and tempted.”

“Tried, but not tempted,” said Iola, as a deep flush overspread her face; “I was never tempted.  I was sold from State to State as an article of merchandise.  I had outrages heaped on me which might well crimson the cheek of honest womanhood with shame, but I never fell into the clutches of an owner for whom I did not feel the utmost loathing and intensest horror.  I have heard men talk glibly of the degradation of the negro, but there is a vast difference between abasement of condition and degradation of character.  I was abased, but the men who trampled on me were the degraded ones.”