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by the shoulder, "where are your shoes and 'cept Nora sed yer'd es leaf hev a monkey han'le stockings?"

"Gorry!" ejaculated Aggy, drawing up the offending members in a twinkling, and blinking her great eyes at me with terror.

There lay the cast-off articles, in full view, midway between the entrance and the parlor door.

"When did you take them off?" I gasped, ready to cry with mortification, as the memory of my rather boastful words surged within me. "I tuck 'em off 'fore de ladies cum," whined the girl, "coz yer tole me ter be quiet: can't do nuffin in dem yar shoes."

"Aggy," I asked, in a tragic voice, "did you swing your feet in that outrageous manner while the ladies were in the hall ?"

"Donno, missy," sobbed Aggy, scratching her head; "mose like I did, coz dey allers swings nattural when I sits on any thin' high.'

Just then Theophilus came in, and, rather than put him in possession of the facts, I hastily gathered up the girl's impedimenta, and allowed her to depart for the kitchen without further comment. But it was trying, to say the least of it, to hear her singing, obliviously, as she bounded down the stairs:

"Oh, I'se goin' to be an angel-
I'se goin' to be an angel,
An' lib in de big, blue sky."

He

In the evening Aggy's father came in. was a noble-looking negro, though evidently worn by toil and suffering. His "Well, gal!" and the twinkle in his bright eye, as Aggy entered the room, told their own story of love and long forbearance. For his sake my resolve to return her to the Society was abandoned at once. I shall never forget the glow of honest pride with which he forced upon me a small sum of money-his first savings as a free man-" to buy de chile some close."

"Ef it's de same to you, marm," was his dignified reply to my remonstrance, "I'd ruther de gal ud hab it. She hain't had no mudder since she woz a nussin' chile, an' ole Cudjoe's nebber had no chance to hev the 'sponsibility uv her afore. May de Lor' bress you, marm, an' de gen'man too, fur shelterin' uv her an' larnin' her." He looked at Aggy a moment, and continued: “An' oh! missus, ef yer could, ef yer only could, wid de Lord's help, make her a Christian, it ud—" He stopped short and burst into tears.

"We will try," I said, grasping the old man's hand; "and you, Aggy, I know, will endeavor in future to be a good girl for your father's sake."

"Can't, missy," sobbed Aggy, with sudden vehemence, as she plunged her woolly head in the old man's bosom, "'tain't no use-I'se 'fractory-sojers sed so-I'se got de debbil in me!"

At this point Theophilus walked into the room with the baby in his arms. Aggy sprang up in an instant.

"Dar, missy, dat's it! She ain't a bit afeard uv niggers-she's liked Aggy frum de furst,

her es me. Ef yer'd on'y let me hole an' ten' de baby I cud be a Chrisshen-I tink I cud— dat's a fac."

And with these words, after wiping her eyes upon her apron, she commenced dancing frantically before the baby, stopping occasionally to let the soft dimpled hands clutch at her wool while the little one crowed and screamed with delight.

Half tempted to consent, and yet dreading a positive fiat from Theophilus, who idolizes the baby, I turned the subject, and was glad when the door-bell summoned Aggy from the room. After old Cudjoe left, Theophilus and I held another consultation. He was inexorable. "What!" he cried, "let that crazy imp take

care of the baby, never! Isn't it enough to have my furniture, windows, and crockery broken, to find the children's hooples' hung across my best beaver; to be made ridiculous before my friends, and to have my youngsters all talking and laughing like darkeys, without having poor little Pinky's brains dashed out into the bargain! I tell you, Emma, this contraband' notion of yours is Quixotic, absurd, positively criminal under the circumstances!"

Now when Theophilus forgets himself in this manner I simply blush for him, and quietly resolve to follow my own calmer judgment. Consequently, Aggy was duly installed the next day as under-nurse, and did so well that before the first week elapsed even Theophilus admitted that matters were not so very discouraging after all.

One bright, icy afternoon-shall I ever forget it!-while little Philly was suffering in the hands of his nurse, under a severe attack of Psychrophobia, the baby, held in Aggy's now careful arms, was gazing through the window panes. Suddenly, like Rasselas, she was seized with an ardent desire to visit the outer world, and, of course, soon set up a vigorous "dey-dey! deydey!" which, being interpreted, means—“I want somebody to put on my street fixings and take me out-quick! quick!"

"Do lef me take her, missy, jess in frun' ob de house; please do, missy," pleaded Aggy, pressing the baby to her heart in eager anticipation. "I keep her wrap up jess es warm es I kin, an' I promis,' she continued, rolling her great eyes solemnly till they showed more white than black, "I promis I wunt go no furder dan de house." Very well," said I, "I'll trust you, Aggy. Look up at the window every few moments, and I'll wave my hand when I wish you to come in."

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We wrapped the little darling up warmly, and I couldn't help congratulating myself on my recognition of Aggy's true sphere, when I saw how tenderly and cautiously she descended the stairs with her precious burden.

In a moment I raised the window and saw Aggy walking demurely up and down in front of the house, her head bobbing like a Mandarin's in dutiful watchfulness of my signal. I could not resist the temptation to run down to the

front parlor, where Theophilus sat reading the paper, to show him how gloriously my system worked. He looked up as I entered.

"Theoph, dear, do come and see how carefully Aggy carries the baby," said I, raising the sash lightly.

Aggy was singing in a subdued voice as she paced slowly up and down:

"Massa gone, missy too,

Cry niggers, cry!

Tink I'll see de bressed Norf

'Fore the day I die,

Hi! hi! Yankee shot 'im,

Now I tink de debbil's got 'im."

All would have been well if Theophilus had only kept quiet, but the man was possessed. He dashed the blinds open with a bang, and called out, sternly:

"Be careful, girl! The sidewalks are slippery. Mind you don't go a single step past the house!"

Aggy raised her eyes to

ing crowd, who deluged him with questions and incensed him with their vulgar jokes, he was indeed to be pitied! Matters were not much ameliorated either by the appearance of a policeman, who, coming late to the rescue, as usual, insisted in stentorian tones upon knowing "what all this meant ?"

Humbled and grateful, I clasped my baby in my arms that evening, scarcely daring to look at Theophilus.

We might never have heard of Aggy again had not our baby been carried to Madison Park, months after, by its new nurse.

When they returned I could hear baby chattering away in pure Choctaw all the way up stairs.

"Why, darling, what is it?" I asked, meeting her at the door, and almost smothering the little orator with kisses. "What did baby see in the Park?"

"Goo goo, Ag, goo goo, Ag, zoo whoo!"
"Bless her heart, ma'am," cried nurse, "I

This was enough. his face, and we saw in a moment that her imp-declare if she don't almost tell you." ish spirit was aroused. Off she started. Theophilus, without taking time to get his hat, rushed to the door and reached the sidewalk just in time to see her dart around the corner. He hurried on, but only to catch the gleam of the baby's white cloak as it disappeared at the next turn. Another, and yet another corner was gained with no better success. People stared to see a hatless man rushing along at such a rate. Crowds gathered, and every idler in the street joined in the chase, but to no avail. The girl had wings to her feet. Theophilus shuddered lest in her excitement she should dash the baby to the ground; but he dared not slacken his pace, because to lose sight of her, he felt, was to lose his child forever. Shouts filled the air -cries of "Stop thief!"-"Run, sis !"-"Shake your pins nimbler, old fellow!"-"Hurrah for the gal!" resounded on every side. Meanwhile the rabble, Theophilus in their midst, pressed on faster and faster. More than once the fugitive ran almost under the heads of passing horses, causing them to leap and prance, but the girl never once faltered or staggered. On she ran, until turning her head she saw that her pursuers were gaining upon her. Halting an instant, she laid the baby on a huge pile of mats in front of a grocery, and flew around the corner. No one followed, for all stopped to see whether what she had cast away was a bundle or a | living thing. Not a sound escaped it, and only when its panting father clasped it to his bosom did the poor frightened birdie utter a cry. The ophilus told me afterward that that cry was the sweetest sound he had ever heard in his lifewhich struck me as rather a queer idea, though I said nothing.

"Tell me what, Betsy?"

"Why, do you believe, ma'am, when me and baby was agoing in the Park, what should come bouncing up to us but an ugly little nigger!"

"Ag! Goo-ug gug!" explained the baby. "Yes, you pet, goo goo. So it was," continued Betsy, taking off its "things," and putting all the pins in her mouth-"it was a nassy black thing, it was!"

"Well, what about the colored girl ?" I asked, becoming impatient. "Was it Aggy?"

"Yes, ma'am, that very young un you've been tellin' me of. Well, if she didn't laugh, and cry, and dance, and clap her hands till I thought she'd go into fits. Then she whisked the baby out of my arms in a jiffy, and most strangled it with kisses; and, do you believe, ma'am, the more I tried to pull baby away the more it wouldn't come, but just held on to the dirty black neck an' hollered. At last, when I got the baby safe in my arms again, and it a-screaming to go back to her, I jest up an' told the sassy thing to go about her business.

"Well,' says she, 'I'se gwine' (these niggers talks like heathen). Tell missy Aggy lub her fust-rate, on'y I'se got anudder missy now.' Then she told me she lived in that little house, you know, ma'am, on the corner of

Street, and ran off, after kissin' baby again, and laughin' an' cryin' like wild."

Betsy paused from sheer exhaustion; for during the narrative she had been tossing her charge up and down, shaking her head, and making herself interesting to it generally.

Before night I called at the "corner house," and found that it was a home indeed for Aggy. Somehow she had on that eventful day run into Poor Theophilus! His position, considering the arms of a Quaker lady-one of those dear his temperament, was certainly not an enviable good souls whose lanterns of kindness are carStanding bareheaded with a screaming ried about in all sorts of out-of-the-way places, baby in his arms, nearly a mile from home, and shedding beams of light in dark corners, and in a part of the city where not a hack, not a discovering something holy where others can hat store, was to be seen, surrounded by a gap-detect only pestilence and sin. Through her I

one.

trust that the prayer of her poor old father has ing; a patient cow stood by a sparkling stream, been answered: watching, with quiet eyes, some lambs cropping

"Ef you could-oh, ef you only could, wid the clover; while nearer the rays of the sun de Lord's help, make her a Christian!"

This is no fancy sketch. Aggy is to-day a living flesh and blood human being-"God's image carved in ebony." When I look at the final result of the experiment with "Our Contraband" I thank God, and take courage for her and for the race to which she belongs.

ARTIST-PHILOSOPHERLOVER.

"A

H!" said the artist to himself, as he put the finishing touches to his picture, "this at last approaches the ideal perfection which I have so longed to attain! Assuredly this will please the whole world."

And in truth it would seem so. Upon the large canvas was depicted an interior, of beautiful appointments and decorations, painted with that sober richness of hue so fascinating to the eye, while, at the same time, it best sets off and enhances the life-figures in the scene. There were many pictures, and one grand head in basso relievo, inclosed in a massive frame hanging upon the walls; and exquisite statuettes of alabaster gleamed, half-luminous, in the corners.

The room might have fitly represented the artist's own studio, had not the invasion of a cradle-a soft, dimpling, sleeping infant within -and a beautiful woman, who, dove-like, sat brooding over the child, forbidden the idea.

The almost divine love shining down upon the babe from the eyes of the woman was pictured beyond word-description. Her face was young, noble, and richly tinted. The regal wealth of golden hair which crowned her head, escaping from the comb, had fallen, radiant as sunbeams, over her full shoulders, covered with a simple robe of saintly whiteness, which was draped in large luxuriance of folds over the supple curves and outlines of her person. A dainty white hand lay firm upon the edge of the cradle -such a hand as a sick man longs for to rest cool upon his forehead and exorcise the racking pain.

Just without the threshold of an inner door, in the tender gloom of the back-ground, was a form so shadowy that one had to look twice to define it. It was that of an angel smiling, with his finger on his lip. It might have been as well, perhaps better, to have left out this visible presence of one from on high, telling us that, nearest to love Divine, was the love of a mother for her child-for a dearer, tenderer life than her own. But of this I am not the one to determine. I have only to do with the facts in my story.

It seemed in the picture to be summer-time, for the one large casement-window was wide open. Far out in the distance the hills lay warm in the glow of sunlight; the long, slant grass gave suggestion of the south wind blow

came dancing and dimpling through the foliage of a great tree, sprinkling the turf beneath with transparent golden flecks.

Flowers came peeping in at the windowroses, and beneath them mignonnette. One could easily fancy that the rich perfume of the one, mingling with the faint but pure scent of the other, was stealing through and out of the atmosphere of the picture to his sense as he looked.

I do not know whether the painting was a master-piece. I can only say that it had received a fine careful finish. Upon it the artist had exhausted his utmost skill. He had felt all that he had painted. He had dreamed this sweet idyl, and now it was depicted on the canvas-enshrined within the woman's eyes and the angel's smile.

Presently some friends came in. They went into raptures; not a fault any where. They defied the severest critic to do other than praise. They insisted that the artist should challenge opinions from the whole world. And so it came to pass that solely to please them he consented to write on a scroll what follows:

"The artist invites every spectator to mark with the chalk pencil a cross upon each limb, feature, or accessory which he thinks deficient."

The first day of the Exhibition came. The picture by the grace of the committee hung in a passable light. The artist's name was neither new nor old. The monument of his fame was indeed begun, but the shaft had yet to rise to the height of immortality.

Lo! the visitors and the critics arrive and stand before the picture. The artist staid at home.

They looked-and assuredly they did admire but then what so sweet as to assert your superior knowledge by finding fault-especially when you are frankly entreated so to do with a chalk pencil at your hand.

Stand with me by the side of the painting and listen.

"Wa'al," ejaculated a Yankee, with his hands in his pockets, "wa'al, whose tumbstun is that neow, I wonder," pointing to the basso relievo on the wall in the scene.

"That is not a tombstone, my good Sir," corrected a by-stander; "it is a painted semblance of the marble bust of the great Judge Story." "Oh, don't say! Wa'al, the position air good, but the color air all-fired bad."

So he slyly raised the pencil and marked Judge Story with a cross.

A fat Dutchman now came and planted his legs in front of the picture. He intended a deliberate view.

"Hm! what stuff!" said Mynheer; "why does de fellow waste baint in such a pusiness? why don't he take bortraits? mit a nasty paby too! I hate dem!" and he made a great cross from one end of the cradle to the other.

Now came an artist into view. He glared at the picture, and immediately grew bilious with jealousy. His own picture, with its clouds like flying apple-dumplings, and its figures, the identical and amazing ones out of a toy Noah's ark, was placed near, and made an admirable foil to heighten the mystical tender charm which pervaded our artist's work, and which sang in the heart like a home lyric.

He

But not for the jealous brother-painter. sneered. "Maternal love! a miserable old subject! The woman has absolutely a wooden face! The whole thing is flat!"

Yes, he called a face in whose deep eyes a whole heaven of love was floating "wooden," and made frantic by his jealousy, the terrible man dashed a venomous cross at this love in the woman's eyes, blotting them out.

It displayed one great,

Not a The paint

Then

went up to his work. universal scratch of cross white chalk. color, not an outline could be seen. er stood transfixed with mortification. he thought, with his eyes bent upon the floor, every fibre in him thrilling, a red spot on each cheek, as if those marks had struck him in the face like an open hand. Presently his face changed and softened; he smiled; the red spots faded out. Have I not said in my title to this true story that he was a philosopher? and philosophy was now in the ascendant; she suggested another experiment; and our artist was not only an Epicurean, but a prosaic philosopher. Indeed, while he thought he wondered he had not had prescience of the trick poor human nature thus challenged had played upon him. It was precisely what he ought to have expected. A short, dark man, evidently a Spaniard, So he took up the scroll and went away at last came to look. He consulted his catalogue, content. Not so his friends. They stormed; then fixing a glass in his eye prepared to criti- they raged up and down his studio; they called cise, rolling the while a paper cigarette. Of all who had affronted the picture with their course we know at once, before he speaks a marks "dolts, coxcombs, noodles, puppies," and word, that any painting out of Spain-and yes, a dozen other complimentary titles. They inhe and we will admit Italy-could not have the sisted that the invitation on the scroll should be slightest shade of merit. If you wish to be cer- reversed, "and then see how the new marks tain of this axiom praise an American artist, would give the lie to the first!" And so, to and see Don Sancho rear, and prance, and ges- please them again, late that night, while the ticulate. So the nose of the Spaniard went up little Frenchman was howling in his sleep with in the air, and he jerked out, "Aha! look at his nightmare, lying heavy on his breast, and that beef-steak angel! It is only a head and all the rest of the cross-marking critics, we ferwings one should paint;" and straightway he vently hope, were floundering and groaning in began to pommel the poor angel with the pen- their beds under the lashings of avenging dreams, cil as if he were driving nails into his body. our philosopher was preparing another scroll. It read thus:

"The artist entreats that on each outline, color, or decoration which gives proof of merit the spectator will make a small circle with the white chalk pencil."

Nearly all the nations of the earth had each a representative at this congress for criticism. A Roman-nosed Italian of the Hebrew persuasion made his unanswerable shibboleth upon the glorious golden hair-"To dare to imitate He arose early the next day, and, taking some immortal Titian with those pumpkin-colored soft cloths and the new scroll, easily obtained adlocks!" Thus he to his own conceit-and shuf-mittance to the Exhibition rooms before the hour fled off caterwauling an opera air.

A wind-dried, wiry little Frenchman, who did not eat a pound of beef in a week, and consequently had no stomach for things substantially as well as ideally good, gazed at the painting. His brown wizened countenance was twisting and twitching-he was making horrible faces, because too much logwood and verjuice, just imbibed, were creating a riot in the above-mentioned organ. He knew he should sleep that night with a claret-colored nightmare; and so there was a sardonic sort of compensation in calling our artist "scélérat," and marking crosses here and there indiscriminately.

To him followed a florid-faced man, English to the back-bone and to the clumsy shoes. When he saw by his catalogue that our artist was from Massachusetts-that sturdy Commonwealth that resisted and defied the King, burned witches, and drowned tea-oh, then, criticism must be fairly done; and a few finishing crosses were added to the rest, reducing the hapless painting to a chaotic ruin.

That night, just before the doors of the Exhibition closed, the artist came quietly in and

of opening. He approached his beautiful picture, and with gentlest care removed the ignominious coat of chalk. The radiance of love in the mother's eyes broke upon him with such a new and sudden spell that he waved forth his arms, and then folded them slowly over his bosom, as if he had taken in to his inmost soul the pure, ineffable sweetness of that look. His heart beat violently. His hand trembled as he restored to view the faultless flow of the white robe, and the lustrous, fluent ripples of the golden hair. The angel seemed to smile upon him, to his then exalted sense; for the soul of the painter at this moment was as innocent and guileless as was that of the picture-child in the cradle; and truly I believe his pencil was guided with a prayer when he traced that grand benignant smile, its shadowy sweetness resting luminous upon the soul like the impression which is left when, in our dreams, we have a glimpse of heaven.

And now in all its pristine beauty the painting once more awaited criticism, the new scroll and pencil duly laid by its side.

Let us listen again.

Two men stand talking eagerly together, | fant a ring in his nose and another in his ear, though in low, almost reverential tones. Their and marked a number of circles together, in the fine faces glow with enthusiasm. form of a bunch of grapes, around the chin of the angel, to represent a long, pointed beard.

claims:

One ex

"What a lovely poem on canvas! How simple, yet how full of suggestion! How the warm golden richness of the woman's hair, as it parts away from her sweet face, is enhanced to a living radiance by contrast with the cool translucent tint of her white robe !"

"And those deep, glorious eyes," whispered the other, "and the exquisite outline of her form. What a noble type of woman! With what a royal air she would lift her head-a royalty all fused into the look of love with which she regards her child! Ah! what is this?" he read the scroll-"We are to mark the beauties we most approve. The wondrous eyes before all; then the beautiful hair;" and he took the pencil and traced a small circle upon the brow and hair of the woman, and the two reluctantly turned away.

Next came two ladies. One was all purple and fine linen; a diabolical French bonnet (they are all of that stamp at present), with flowers and feathers half a yard high on top of the brim, making the wearer look as if just escaped from Bedlam (all women look thus in the present fashion); gilt side-combs; hair frizzed and stuffed artificially; velvet cloak; moiré antique dress trimmed with guipure lace; gloves with two buttons; and unlimited crinoline. With rustle, bustle, and fuss she took a seat in front of the picture. She knew all about high art, and could mince out such words as "chiarooscuro," "pre-Raphaelite," " manipulation," tone," and all the rest, which I can not repeat, because I do not know them; and having lately been reading Tennyson, she was in a twitter to call any thing and every thing "an idyl.”

66

So she put her head and its stupendous accompaniments very much on one side, and, half shutting her eyes, lisped, affectedly:

Among the rest came a flabby-faced, loosejointed gentleman, with a poultice round his neck, and severely shaved as to whisker, who made the specified mark of admiration on the cow, because he (not the cow) was a hypocrite, and would not own his admiration for the woman; while a jolly stock-broker, with his money-bags breaking out in gold chains and diamond pins, stamped and admired, and stamped and vociferated by George! and by Jove! that the picture was prime; the best thing in the market; and he meant to buy it and put it up for a raffle; and he made a wreath of circles all round the margin-margins being most to his taste.

Between genuine admiration, hypocrisy, idleness, and mischief, the painting, as on the day before, quite disappeared; but this time it was killed with kindness. It would seem that every line which yesterday had been condemned was now perfect in the eyes of beholders. The philosopher, coming in at night, saw in the myriads of admiring "O's" only one other phase of human nature, and laughed softly to himself; then, taking up the scroll and pencil, he went away.

Early the next morning the painting was once more restored, and this time left to take its chance of criticism from knowledge, impulse, or instinct, without scroll, let, or hindrance. The artist came to the Exhibition.

The rooms were crowded with visitors. One half of them praised our painting, the other half condemned it. The artist did not care for either. He had been taught a lesson. He was there to please himself with a closer view of human nature.

That day passed and the next. On the third, in the afternoon, a beautiful young woman came past with a light, gliding step. She glanced at the painting, stopped, and quietly sat down.

"Oh, Miss Pepper, what a lovely little idyl The ample sweep of her pearl-gray robe brushed that baby is!"

"Bless me!" exclaimed her companion, quite startled at such a heathenish remark, "what an idea! It don't look the least like an idol. It is quite a clean, decent baby, I am sure."

the artist's foot. If the golden-haired woman in the picture could have been touched with life, and had come out and stood by the other, whose delicately-traced brows and shining tresses were of raven blackness, they would have been widely different indeed, but the two most beautiful women in the world.

The one out of the picture was pale as a lily, with great violet eyes, full of a moonlight calm

She was a little miminy-piminy womanaltogether second-hand in dress and positionone of those convenient aunts who live in most brown stone houses, and mend the stockings. A faint sniff of contempt at the lamentable-of a repose which would have been sad, had ignorance of Miss Pepper was all the explanation vouchsafed by the first lady. She took the pencil and made two large circles like a pair of spectacles on the face of the baby, and pranced off without looking at her companion.

guns.

"Bless me! oh, bless me!" ejaculated poor little Miss Pepper, letting the words off like pop"She has made the poor thing look like an idol now, if it didn't before, and did forever! They are finishing it," she added, as two mischievous boys, with infinite glee, gave the in

not a rosy, merry, melting mouth, ever dimpling into smiles, made an April chasing of the tender gloom.

The artist watched her. He noticed how the dark, pale face lightened as she gazed; how a faint rose-bloom spread slowly over the oval check; how the violet-gray eyes grew larger with the tender, loving thoughts which the picture was whispering to her heart; how two big tears at last came trembling down, and were suffered to drop unheeded upon her folded hands,

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