“Now, what can master want with me?” enquires Harry, as, on the road, they roll away towards the city.

Bradshaw cracks his whip, and with a significant smile looks Harry in the face, and returns:  “Don’ ax dis child no mo’ sich question.  Old mas’r and me neber break secret.  Tell ye dis, do’h!  Old mas’r do good ting, sartin.”

“You know, but won’t tell me, eh?” rejoins Harry, his manly face wearing a solicitous look.  Bradshaw shakes his head, and adds a cunning wink in reply.

It is three o’clock when they arrive at the Villa, where, without reserve, missus extends her hand, and gives him a cordial welcome,—­tells him Franconia has been waiting to see him with great patience, and has got a present for him.  Franconia comes rushing into the hall, and is so glad to see him; but her countenance wears an air of sadness, which does not escape his notice-she is not the beautiful creature she was years ago, care has sadly worn upon those rounded features.  But master is there, and he looks happy and cheerful; and there is something about the house servants, as they gather round him to have their say, which looks of suspiciously good omen.  He cannot divine what it is; his first suspicions being aroused by missus saying Franconia had been waiting to see him.

“We must not call him Harry any longer-it doesn’t become his profession:  now that he is Elder of my plantation flock, he must, from this time, be called Elder!” says Rosebrook, touching him on the arm with the right hand.  And the two ladies joined in, that it must be so.  “Go into the parlour, ladies; I must say a word or two to the Elder,” continued Rosebrook, taking Harry by the arm, and pacing through the hall into the conservatory at the back of the house.  Here, after ordering Harry to be seated, he recounts his plan of emancipation, which, so far, has worked admirably, and, at the time proposed, will, without doubt or danger, produce the hoped-for result.  “You, my good man,” he says, “can be a useful instrument in furthering my ends; I want you to be that instrument!” His negroes have all an interest in their labour, which interest is preserved for them in missus’s savings-bank; and at a given time they are to have their freedom, but to remain on the plantation if they choose, at a stipulated rate of wages.  Indeed, so strongly impressed with the good results of his proposed system is Rosebrook, that he long since scouted that contemptible fallacy, which must have had its origin in the very dregs of selfishness, that the two races can only live in proximity by one enslaving the other.  Justice to each other, he holds, will solve the problem of their living together; but, between the oppressor and the oppressed, a volcano that may at any day send forth its devouring flame, smoulders.  Rosebrook knows goodness always deserves its reward; and Harry assures him he never will violate the trust.  Having said thus much, he rises from his chair, takes Harry by the arm, and leading him to the door of the conservatory, points him to a passage leading to the right, and says:  “In there!-proceed into that passage, enter a door, first door on the left, and then you will find something you may consider your own.”