his manner, but since he had been compelled to amputate the limb of one of Hannibal's black friends, he had looked upon him with fear and trembling. It gives us pleasure to say that his skill was availing in this instance, and that the arm of Hannibal was spared the terrible gash of the amputating knife.

Bellamy Place was at least two miles from the nearest plantation, but before noon, several carriages arrived, to bear the family to the homes of their friends. Mrs Bellamy did not like to leave Hannibal; but Aunt Milly, who was the queen of nurses, promised to watch over him with the tenderest care, and she knew Dr Manning would be assiduous in his attentions.

It was pleasant to be surrounded once more with all the comforts and elegancies of life, though no longer theirs ; and to be clothed in nice and handsome garments, though not their own. All their wardrobe was burned. They had saved nothing from the wreck but their night-raiments that covered them. Most of the furniture, too, was destroyed; but the money and papers were saved. The cotton was spared; their negroes remained. The loss was comparatively small to what it might have been, now that they had leisure to reflect upon the manner in which the fire had been communicated. As it was still sultry, there had been no fire kindled in the house, and yet the north wing had taken fire, evidently in the lower part. Mr Bellamy remembered smoking a pipe in that room before retiring to bed, and rapping out the contents of the bowl on the hearth. The wind must have blown a coal in contact with some combustible material, and thus lighted the wrath of an element, which, like its antagonist,

water, makes the best of vassals, but the most awful of

masters.

"I will never smoke another pipe while I live," exclaimed Mr Bellamy, with remorseful energy—and he never did; but after a while the blue smoke of his fragrant Havanas curled gracefully round his head. A spark from a cigar might kindle a conflagration, too; but it was not a pipe.

Had she

It may be said by some that Hannibal's selection of the place where he bore his rescued mistress was the last the proverbially superstitious negro would have chosen. But though Hannibal had all the superstitions of his race, in this instance it was unaccompanied by fear. been buried in some lone field, where the wild-brier was suffered to trail, and the reptile to crawl, he might have shunned it as haunted ground. But she slept so near his own cabin, that he could see her quiet bed whenever he went out into the field in the morning, or returned to his evening rest.

When he had recovered the use of his arm, and commenced his labours, with even more than his accustomed zeal, Mr Bellamy renewed the offer which had been rejected on the night of the fire.

"Your mistress gave you your freedom, Hannibal," said his master," and I too repeated the gift with all my heart. You refused to accept it then; but you were excited, and had not had time to reflect on the value of what you rejected. Once more I make you the same offer. I break your bonds. Hannibal, you are henceforth

and forever free."

"And I must leave you, master ? "

"To remain among those who have been your fellowslaves, would create discontent, perhaps, and ill-will. But you could go back to your native country—that is, the country of your fathers. I can send you to Liberia, where a colony of your own colour is established, and where you may, perchance, be happier than you have ever been with me." For the white colonist of America scorns the idea of the African being allowed to share as a free man in the equal rights to the soil and the government of that great continent, to which the claims of either are the same.

Hannibal spread both hands on the top of the shovel he was holding, and leaned his chin over on the firm platform, with his large, thoughtful eyes fixed steadily on the ground. He seemed to be revolving deeply the momentous question, so calmly and deliberately presented to him. At length, raising his head and drawing a deep inspiration, he said: "I been argufying the subject with myself, master, and I comes to this conclusion-I rather stay with you and mistress, jist as I be, and jist as you be, than go way off 'mong strange people, who know nothing and care nothing 'bout me, no more than the man in the moon. I've sometimes thought, when I been working and thinking, 'twould be mighty fine thing to be free, work jist when I pleased, and long as I pleased, and make a heap of money all for my own self; and if I'd had a hard master, as some niggers has, I'd a run off, and gone where the free folks live. But you allos been kind, and mistress too. When I sick you nuss me and pray for me. Doctor come and make me well. When I die, you bury me long side of Cora, and mistress and Miss

Katy come and cry over poor Hannibal, and say, 'Poor fellow-so sorry he done dead.' Way off yonder, they no care whether he live or die. No, master, I stay and work with you, Lord willing, long as I live."

Hannibal held out his Herculean hand, and Mr Bellamy grasped it warmly, cordially, gratefully. He felt that he had a friend, a sincere, honest, true-hearted friend, in the devoted African.

"God bless you, Hannibal." "God bless you too, master."

The general felt bound to his master ever after by a bond, stronger than that of slavery-a bond that never could be loosened.

CHAPTER X.

"Come, share my all, my own true friend,

My purse and heart divide ;

I'll love and trust thee to the end,

Whatever may betide."-BALLAD,

BELLAMY PLACE rose from its ashes adorned with new beauty. It had lost, however, some of its depth of shade, for several of its noble hickories had bowed beneath the axe, after being scathed and blasted by the breath of the flame. The mansion was not completed internally, but a sufficient number of rooms was finished to furnish a pleasant and comfortable home for the lately exiled family.

But

Man loves to build, and to enter in; he loves to plan, and to execute; to improve on the labours of the past, to see in the forms of beauty and fitness growing out under his directing hand, the refinement of his taste, and the progression of his understanding. While the old mansion remained strong, comfortable, and handsome, Mr Bellamy had no plea for erecting a new one. since necessity gave the command, he had found excitement and delight in superintending a work in which the classic taste of his friend Warland greatly assisted him. Another reflection added to the satisfaction of Mr Bellamy. He had experienced a domestic misfortune; the hand of chastisement had been laid upon him, gently, it is true, but he was no longer that strange anomaly—a man all sunshine. The cloud had come, had passed; he felt as if he had a better right to the returning sunbeams. Ah, what right has man to any earthly possessions? By what tenure does he retain these gifts of God, if it be not as a free and unmerited gift?

There is an old adage (and there is truth in these time-honoured sayings), that "misfortunes never come singly." A great poet has said, that "woes tread on the heels of each other." There does seem to be a gregarious principle in the whole family of misfortune, and where one sad member has found admission, one by one the pale sisterhood come gliding in.

When Mr Bellamy was at College, there was another young man, a southerner, and a Georgian, too, who entered at the same time; and during the four years of his college life, he was his classmate and friend. His name was Arnold. When the graduated students separated on