in tidy dresses, their white aprons looking so clean, come bustling into the room and invite missus and her guest into an airy ante-room, where a table is bountifully spread with cake, fruit, fine old Madeira, and lemonade.  Mr. Scranton bows and asks “the pleasure;” Mrs. Rosebrook acknowledgingly takes his arm, while the negroes bow and scrape as they enter the room.  Mr. Scranton stands a few moments gazing at the set-out.  “I hope Mr. Scranton will make himself quite at home,” the good lady interposes.  Everything was so exquisitely arranged, so set off with fresh-plucked flowers, as if some magic hand had just touched the whole.

“Now!” continued Mrs. Rosebrook, motioning her head as she points to the table:  “you’ll admit my negroes can do something?  Poor helpless wretches, we say continually:  perhaps they are worse when bad owners can make the world look upon them through northern prejudice.  They are just like children; nobody gives them credit for being anything else; and yet they can do much for our good.  It would trouble some persons to arrange a table so neatly; my boys did it all, you see!” And she exults over the efficiency of her negroes, who stand at her side acknowledging the compliment with broad grins.  The deacon helps Mr. Scranton, who commences stowing away the sweetmeats with great gusto.  “It is truly surprising what charming nigger property you have got.  They don’t seem a bit like niggers” he concludes deliberately taking a mouthful.  Mrs. Rosebrook, pleased at the honest remark, reminds him that the deacon carries out her views most charmingly, that she studies negro character, and knows that by stimulating it with little things she promotes good.  She studies character while the deacon studies politics.  At the same time, she rather ironically reminds Mr. Scranton that the deacon is not guilty of reading any long-winded articles on “state rights and secession.”  “Not he!” she says, laughingly; “you don’t catch him with such cast-iron material in his head.  They call him pious-proof now and then, but he’s progress all over.”

Mr. Scranton, attentive to his appetite, draws a serious face, gives a side glance, begs a negro to supply his plate anew, and reckons he may soon make a new discovery in southern political economy.  But he fears Mrs. Rosebrook’s plan will make a mongrel, the specific nature of which it would be difficult to define in philosophy.  Perhaps it will not be acceptable to the north as a thinking people, nor will it please the generosity of southern ladies.

“There is where the trouble lies!” exclaimed the deacon, who had until then yielded up the discussion to his good lady.  “They look upon our system with distrust, as if it were something they could not understand.”