"'Roxy, Roxy, purty Roxy! Poor, pore Jack! pore Jack!' Now, Tom, say 'Roxy, Roxy, pore Jack!'"

The bird flew and struck, and sang a little, very niggardly, and so, as the lights in the west sank and faded, the shiftless lover continued in vain to seek to give the bird one note more than the magician, his master, had taught.

The stars modestly appeared in the soft heavens, and Princess Anne gathered its roofs together like a camp of camels in the desert, and, with an occasional bleat or bark or human sound, seemed dozing out the soft fall night, absorbed, perhaps, in the spreading news of Mrs. Custis's death and Vesta's wedding-journey, that had to be taken at last.

"Miss Virgie," said the woman Mary - ten years her senior, but comely still"have you ever loved like me? Oh, I had a kind husband, and, helpless as I was, I tried to love once more. Maybe it was a sin."

"I love my mistress as if she was myself," Virgie said; "I feel as if, in heaven, before we came here, I was with her, Mary! I love her father, too, as if he was not my master, but my friend. Oh, how I love them all! But what can I do to show my love - poor naked slave that I am? They say they will soon set me free. Mary, how do people feel when they are free?"

"They don't appreciate it," sighed Mary. "They go and put themselves in captivity again, like selfish things: they falls in love."

"But to love and be free!" Virgie said, her bosom glowing in the thought till her rich eyes seemed to shed warmth and starlight on her companion's face; "to give your own free love to some one and feel him grateful for it: what a gift and what a joy is that! He might be thankful for it, and, seeing how pure it was, he might respect me."

"Who is it, Virgie?" Mary said.

"Whoever would love me like a white girl!" the ardent slave softly exclaimed. "It must be some one who does not despise me. I hear Miss Vesta's beau, Master William, read the beautiful service, with his sweet, submissive face, and I think to myself, 'How freely he might have my heart to comfort his if he would take it like a gentleman!' I would be his slave to make him happy, if he could love me purely, like my mother! Oh, my mother, whose name I do not know! where is the tie that fastens me to heaven? Did my father love me?"

"Pore Jack! pore Jack! Sing 'Roxy, Roxy, Roxy,' Tom!" coaxed Wonnell above to the sleepy bird.

"Whoever was your father, Virgie, your mother's love for you was pure. God makes the wickedest love their children, because he is the Father to all the fatherless."

"Oh! could my own father have brought me into the world and hated me?" Virgie said. "They say I am almost beautiful. Will he who gave me life never call me his, and say, 'My daughter, come to my respect, rest on my heart, and take my name'?"