The family was already huddled about the table.  But room was reserved for their guest, and at his appearance the old patriarch rose smilingly from his seat, pulled off his cap, which it seemed he always wore, and shook hands with him, with the usual hospitable greeting.

“Sarvant, Sah!  Welcome, Sah!”

Fessenden’s was given a seat by his side.  And the old woman piled his plate with good things.  And he ate, and was filled.  For he was by no means dainty, and had not, simple soul! the least prejudice against color.

And he was happy.  The friendly black faces around him,—­the cheerful, sympathetic, rich-toned voices,—­the motherly kindness of the old woman,—­the exquisite smiling politeness of the old man, who got up and shook hands with him, on an average, every half-hour,—­the Bible-reading,—­the singing,—­the praying,—­the elegance and condescension of Gentleman Bill,—­the pleasant looks and words of the laughing-eyed girls,—­and the irrepressible merriment of Joe, made that a golden Sabbath in the lad’s life.

Alas that it should come to this!  Associate with black folks! how shocking!  What if he was a—­Fessenden’s? wasn’t he white?  Where were those finer tastes and instincts which make you and me shrink from persons of color?  Pity they had not been properly developed in him!  Pity he should stoop so low as to eat and sleep with niggers, and feel grateful!  He rolls and tumbles in mad frolic with Joe on the garret-floor, and plays horse with him.  He suffers his hair to be combed by the girls, and actually experiences pleasure at the touch of their gentle hands, and feels a vague wondering joy when they praise his smooth flaxen locks.  In a word, he is so weak as to wish that good Mr. Williams was his father, and this delightful hut his home!

And so he spends his Sunday.  The family does not attend public worship.  They used to, when the old meeting-house was standing, and the old minister was alive.  But they do not feel at ease in the new edifice, and the smart young preacher is too smart for them altogether.  His rhetoric is like the cold carving and frescos,—­very fine, very admirable, no doubt; but it has no warmth in it for them; it is foreign to their common daily lives; it comes not near the hopes and fears and sufferings of their humble hearts.  Here religion, which too long suffered abasement, is exalted.  It is highly respectable.  It shows culture; it has the tone of society.  It is worth while coming hither of a Sunday morning, if only to hear the organ and see the fashions.  Yet it can hardly be expected that such creatures as the Williamses should appreciate the privilege of hearing and beholding from the inclosure which has been properly set off for their class,—­the colored people’s pew.

But Fessendon’s might have done better, one would say, than to stay at home with them.  Why didn’t he go to church, and be somebody? He would not have been put into the niggers’ pew.  As for his clothes, which might have been objected to by worldly people, who would have thought of them, or of anything else but his immortal soul, in the house of God?  Of course, there were no respecters of persons there,—­none to say to a rich Frisbie, or an eloquent Gingerford, “Sit thou, here, in a good place,” and to a ragged Fessenden’s, “Stand thou there.”