The Brother Clerks; A Tale of New-Orleans.

'He is a man you will probably never know, however long you may live with him. Had it not been for the necessary contact my position in his employ brought us into, I should never have known him at all.'

'And you believe he really deemed Arthur guilty to-day?'

'That is more than I can answer. Mr. Delancey is close with regard to money matters.'

'My poor brother! Wilkins, promise me to do all you can for him. Oh! I know how much danger surrounds him. What can I, so young and feeble, do? We two are all that is left our mother. Help me-I'm sure you will-to save him.'

'I will, Guly-by my sworn love to you, I will. Sometime, my boy, when I may greatly need a friend to help me through a trouble or sorrow that is coming upon me-when those that know me may shun me-you, who love me, will be that friend. May I rely upon you?'

'Depend upon me?-yes, truly, Wilkins-in anything that's right.'

Guly's heart was racked with more sorrowful anxiety for his brother than he could, or cared to, express; but in spite of his efforts to restrain them, the bright tears fell down his cheeks at Wilkins' kind words, and dropped upon the broad breast which supported him. Wilkins raised his hand, and wiped them away.

'Don't cry, Guly; your grief unmans me.'

'Oh, Wilkins, how can I help it?'

Wilkins answered nothing, but drew the slight form closer in silent sympathy. The hours went on, and midnight still saw them sitting there together-the golden head upon the broad, kind breast, and the eyes of both looking thoughtfully into the coals.

CHAPTER XVII.

'She's beautiful, and therefore to be woo'd;
She is a woman, therefore to be won.'

Henry VI.

–-'Bright
The lamps shone o'er fair women and brave men;
A thousand hearts beat happily; and when
Music arose, with its voluptuous swell,
Soft eyes looked love to eyes which spake again,
And all went merry as a marriage bell.'

Childe Harold.

Della sat in her large chair, before the dressing-glass, with her delicate feet buried in the rich softness of a velvet cushion; her hands were folded in her lap, and her eyes fixed upon Minny's face, which was clearly reflected in the mirror, as she stood behind her mistress, arranging the shining bands of long fair hair.

'Minny, how very, very white you are! How came you to be so white, when your mother is the blackest slave papa owns?'

A scarlet flush rose to the quadroon's cheek.

'My father, Miss, was as white as your own.'

'Were you born here, Minn?'

'My mother was in your father's service when she gave me birth, Miss Della. Will you have your bandeaux single or double for this evening?'

'Double, Minn, so the wreath can lie nicely in between; and make those braids as rich as possible. I wish to look my best to-night. You have always lived here since you were born, Minn?-was a baby when I was a baby?'

'Yes, my dear Miss, and my mother was your nurse; your own mother not liking to spoil her figure by nursing her child, you were put to my mother's breast. So mother tells me.'

'Well, if you had been a white child, that would have made us foster-sisters, wouldn't it? That's the reason old Mag loves me so well. I never knew of this before.'

'It's something very common here, you know, Miss, for white children to have their foster-mothers among the slaves. Fashionable ladies always think it ruins their forms to have a child at the breast.'

'Yes, I know, Minn; and I think it a very shameful practice, too. I never want to be a fashionable woman, if it is going to deprive me of performing a mother's holiest offices for my children. I'm sure after a child of mine had been reared at a black mother's breast I should feel they were black children, had black blood in their veins, and I never could feel right toward them again.'

'You are one in a thousand, dear Miss Della; and such feelings are right, and good, and noble. But if you ever wish to be truly a mother to your children, don't marry a fashionable man, whose pride will be to show you off all the time in gay company, and who will be always fretting to keep your beauty good. It is such husbands that make bad mothers. A woman can't be a votary of fashion and a good mother.'

'I never shall marry a fashionable man, Minny-you know that; but when I do marry I shall try and be a good, and true, and dutiful wife, nothing more. I haven't a taste for high life-that is, gay life, which has no heart in it. But, Minny, let's go back to you; I commenced about you; what made you change the subject, child?'

'Did I, Miss?'

'Yes. Who was your father, Minny?'

Minny's cheek lost it's flush, and became pale as death.

'I cannot tell you, Miss.'

'But you know.'

Minny made no answer, but her hands shook violently, and the braids she had just fastened fell loose again from her trembling fingers.

'What ails you, Minn? why don't you answer me?' said Della, looking up earnestly at Minny, in the glass.

'I never told you a lie in the world, Miss Della; and I don't answer you because I can't tell the truth now.'

'You must tell me if you know, Minny; and you must tell the truth, too.'

'Oh, Miss Della,' said the girl, sinking at her mistress's feet in a fit of wild weeping, 'don't, don't ask me this. I never knew it myself till yesterday, and then I wrung it from my mother, who charged me, if I valued her life, never to lisp it again. It made me wretched. Oh, Miss Della, it would kill you.'

'Kill me? How can it affect me, silly child? What nonsense.'

Della lifted up the beautiful head which was bowed before her, and turned the pallid face toward her own.

'Tell me, you foolish one,' she persisted, her curiosity fully aroused. 'I must and will know about it now;' and she stamped her little foot with an air of command, which, toward her favorite, was very rarely assumed.

Minny pressed her hands, clasped one upon the other, hard against her heart, as if its throbbing was painful, and raised her eyes, full of a strange, wild light, to her mistress's face.

'I would sooner die than tell you, Miss.'

There might have been something in that agonized look that called forth emotion, or there might have been something in that cold, fixed gaze, which stamped for the instant the father on that upturned, ashy face; for as she