CELOT

HLOE, who was carefully instructed to use up every scrap of time for the benefit of her mistress, had seated herself to braid rags for a

carpet, as soon as the tea-things were disposed of. The entrance of the minister into her apartment surprised her, for it was very unusual. She rose, made a profound courtesy, and remainded standing.

"Sit down, Chloe! sit down!" said he, with a condescending wave of his hand. "I have come to speak to you about an important matter. You have heard me read from the Scriptures that marriage is honorable. You are old enough to be married, Chloe, and it is right and proper you should be married. My Tom wants a wife, and there is nobody I should like so well for him as you. I will go home and send Tom to talk with you about it."

Chloe looked very much frightened and exclaimed: "Please don't, Massa Gordonmammon. I don't want to be married."

"But it's right and proper you should be married," rejoined the minister; "and Tom wants a wife. It's your duty, Chloe, to do whatever your minister and your mistress tell you to do."

That look from Jim came up as a bright vision before poor Chloe, and she burst into tears.

"I will come again when your mind is in a state more suited to your condition," said the minister. "At present your disposition seems to be rebellious. I will leave you to think of what I have said."

But thinking made Chloe feel still more rebellious. Tom was fat and stupid, with thick lips, and small dull-looking eyes. He compared very unfavorably with her bright and handsome Jim. She swayed back and forth, and groaned. She thought over all the particulars of that last walk on the beach, and murmured to herself, "He looked jest as ef he wanted to say suthin'."

She thought of Tom and groaned again; and underlying all her confusion of thoughts there was a miserable feeling that, if the minister and her mistress both said she must marry Tom, there was no help for it. The next day, she slashed and slammed round in an extraordinary She broke a mug and a bowl, and sanded the floor with a general conglomeration of scratches, instead of the neat herring-bone on which she usually prided herself. It was the only way she had to exercise her free-will in its desperate struggle with necessity.

manner.

Mrs. Lawton, who never thought of her in any other light than as a machine, did not know what to make of these singular proceedings. "What upon airth ails you?" exclaimed she. "I do believe the gal's gone crazy.' Chloe paused in her harum-scarum sweeping, and said, with a look and tone almost defiant, "I don't want to marry Tom."

"But the minister wants you to marry him," replied Mrs. Lawton, "and you ought to mind the minister."

Chloe did not dare to dispute that assertion, but she dashed her broom round in the sand, in a very rebellious manner.

"Mind what you're about, gal!" exclaimed Mrs. Lawton. "I am not going to put up with such tantrums."

Chloe was acquainted with the weight of her mistress's hand, and she moved the broom round in more systematic fashion; but there was a tempest raging in her soul.

In the course of a few days the minister visited the kitchen again, and found Chloe still averse to his proposition. If his spiritual ear had been delicate, he would have noticed anguish in her pleading tone, when she said: "Please, Massa Gordonmammon, don't say nothin' more 'bout it. I don't want to be married." But his spiritual ear was not delicate; and her voice sounded to him merely as that of a refractory wench, who was behaving in a manner very unseemly and ungrateful in a bondwoman who had been taken from the heathen round about, and brought under the guidance of Christians. He therefore assumed his sternest look when he said: "I supposed you knew it was your duty to obey whatever your minister and your mistress tell you. The Bible says, 'He is the minister of God unto you.' It also says, 'Servants, obey your masters in all things'; and your mistress stands to you in the place of your deceased master. How are you going to account to God for your disobedience to his commands?"

Chloe, half frightened and half rebellious, replied, "I don't think Missis would like it, if you made Missy Katy marry somebody when she said she didn't want to be married."

"Chloe, it is very presumptuous in you to talk in that way," rejoined the minister. "There is no similarity between your condition and that of your young mistress. You are descended from Ham, Chloe; and Ham was accursed of God on account of his sin, and his posterity were ordained to be servants; and the Bible says, 'Servants, obey your masters in all things'; and it says that the minister is a 'minister of God unto you.' You were born among heathen and brought to a land of Gospel privileges; and you ought to be grateful that you have protectors capable of teaching you what to do. Now your mistress wants you to marry Tom, and I want you to marry him; and we expect that you will do as we bid you, without any more words. I will come again, Chloe; though you ought to feel ashamed of yourself for giving your minister so much trouble about such a trifling matter."

Receiving no answer, he returned to the sitting-room to talk with Mrs. Lawton.

Chloe, like most people who are alone much of their time, had a confirmed habit of talking to herself; and her soliloquies were apt to be rather promiscuous and disjointed.

"Trifling matter!" said she. "S'pose it's trifling matter to you, Massa Minister. Ugh! S'pose they'll make me. Don't know nothin' 'bout