doubtful hue, which puzzles the beholder to know whether the flesh and blood he sees before him is an unmixed specimen of the superior race, and thus entitled to the rank and privileges of a human being, or whether, owing to the vices of that superior race, sanctioned by the existing laws of the land, a chattel slave is the highest rank to which this immortal soul can ever aspire. She bore none of the badges of servitude, her carriage and mien resembling more the northern prostitute, than the submissive victim of southern institutions. Lost to all sense of degradation she gloried in her fascinating power over others, for at the same time she held her master in thrall, her mistress was so won over by her proffered kindness and thousand little acts of dissimulation, that the slightest breath of reproach from any of the fellow slaves would not have been tolerated by her, but tills confidence was of short duration.
Mrs. Carleton was not la woman of an investigating mind. Of benevolent impulses, she delighted in relieving cases of suffering that came immediately under her observation, but of their causes and character she knew far less than Rosalind, or even Milly. She was none of the world's deep thinkers. Gaining the affections of all who saw her by her rare charms of manner and conversation, and possessing also a dignity that forbade any unbecoming familiarity with inferiors, at the same time that she mingled respect with condescension, the spirit of caste was not offended, and she was no less a favorite in her new home among all classes than she had been at the north. No one who saw her in the opening bloom of
