At that time, as now, parents were very scrupulous as to the society into which they introduced their children, especially their daughters; and papa knew of a certain circumstance in Carlo’s life to which my mother might greatly object.  But he knew the man had an honest and noble heart.  He passed his arm into the Italian’s and drew him to the inn where my father was stopping, and to his room.  Here he learned from Mario that he had bought one of those great barges that bring down provisions from the West, and which, when unloaded, the owners count themselves lucky to sell at any reasonable price.  When my father proposed to Mario to be taken as a passenger the poor devil’s joy knew no bounds; but it disappeared when papa added that he should take his two daughters with him.

The trouble was this:  Mario was taking with him in his flatboat his wife and his four children; his wife and four children were simply—­mulattoes.  However, then as now, we hardly noticed those things, and the idea never entered our minds to inquire into the conduct of our slaves.  Suzanne and I had known Celeste, Mario’s wife, very well before her husband bought her.  She had been the maid of Marianne Perret, and on great occasions Marianne had sent her to us to dress our hair and to prepare our toilets.  We were therefore enchanted to learn that she would be with us on board the flatboat, and that papa had engaged her services in place of the attendants we had to leave behind.

It was agreed that for one hundred dollars Mario Carlo would receive all three of us as passengers, that he would furnish a room simply but comfortably, that papa would share this room with us, that Mario would supply our table, and that his wife would serve as maid and laundress.  It remained to be seen now whether our other fellow-travelers were married, and, if so, what sort of creatures their wives were.

[The next day the four intended travelers met at Gordon’s house.  Gordon had a wife, Maggie, and a son, Patrick, aged twelve, as unlovely in outward aspect as were his parents.  Carpentier, who showed himself even more plainly than on the previous night a man of native refinement, confessed to a young wife without offspring.  Mario told his story of love and alliance with one as fair of face as he, and whom only cruel law forbade him to call wife and compelled him to buy his children; and told the story so well that at its close the father of Francoise silently grasped the narrator’s hand, and Carpentier, reaching across the table where they sat, gave his, saying: 

“You are an honest man, Monsieur Carlo.”

“Will your wife think so?” asked the Italian.

“My wife comes from a country where there are no prejudices of race.”