About an hour after General Harrington drove up to his stables, with such a clash of bells, and stole from it so noiselessly, there came another sleigh along the high road, the very one which had borne Lina French to her wretched city home. Noiselessly as it had moved that stormy night, the sleigh crept toward General Harrington’s dwelling. At the cross of the roads it made a halt, and out from the pile of furs stepped a female, mantled from head to foot, who set her foot firmly upon the snow, and, with a wave of her hand, dismissed the sleigh, which, turning upon its track, glided like a shadow into the darkness again.

The woman stood still till the sleigh was out of sight; then gathering the cloak about her, walked rapidly towards the house. As General Harrington had done, she opened the door with a latch-key, and glided into the darkened vestibule. Her tread left no sound on the marble, and she glided on through the darkness like a shadow, meeting no one, and apparently so well acquainted with the building that light was unnecessary. At length she paused opposite a door, opened it cautiously, and entered a dusky chamber, lighted only by a small lamp that was so shaded that a single gleam of light shot across the floor, leaving the rest in darkness. A bed stood in this room with a low couch, on which Agnes Barker was sleeping. The woman took up the lamp, allowing a stream of light to fall upon her face, at the same moment it revealed that of the holder, which shone out hard as iron, and with a grey pallor upon it.

“Is it you?” exclaimed the girl, starting up and putting back the hair from her face. “Have you found him? Has he returned? Why can’t you speak to me? Where is Ralph Harrington?”

“Agnes!”

“Well,” answered the girl, impatiently.

“It is useless pursuing this infatuation longer. The time has come when you must learn to command yourself. You are my daughter!”

“I don’t believe it!” answered the girl, angrily.

“Have you ever known any other parent?”

“I never had any parent!”

“Who placed you at school? who paid for your education?”

“I don’t know your mistress, I dare say, who was ashamed of my birth, and made you her agent. I have always believed so and believe it yet.”

“Agnes, you are my own child. I call on Heaven to witness it!”

“I am not fool enough to believe you.”

“You would have the poor thing separated from young Harrington, and I had no other way of appeasing your unreasonable demands, being your mother.”

“Well, at any rate they are separated, and I am not married to James the millionaire, which was your wish; so, after all, I do not come out second best in a fair trial of strength, you see.”

“I do not wish your marriage with James Harrington, and Ralph you can never hope for.”

“You think so!” answered the girl, with a vicious sneer. “You fancy that one rebuff will crush me. I neither know nor care who told you that he has met my love with scorn, fled my presence as if I were a viper on his father’s hearth. I tell you he shall return. I have a will that shall yet bend his love to mine though it were tougher than iron. Woman, I say again, Ralph Harrington shall yet be my lawfully wedded husband!”

“Girl, I tell you again, and with far better reasons, it can never be!” cried Zillah, towering over her as she sat upon the couch.

“It shall be!” almost hissed the girl, meeting the black eyes bent upon her with glances of sullen wrath.

“Not till the laws permit brothers and sisters to marry!” answered Zillah. “For I call upon the living God to witness that you are General Harrington’s child!” Her face hardened and grew white, as the secret burst from her lips; for she saw the shudder and heard the shriek that broke from her child.

“His and yours?” questioned Agnes, pale as death.

“His and mine!”

“And you were a slave?”

“His slave.”

Agnes started up, tossing her hands wildly in the air.

“A noble parentage a thrice noble parentage!” she cried out, hoarse with pain and rage. “The child of a villain, and his slave! Woman, I could tear you into atoms, for daring to pour your black blood into my life!”

Zillah drew back, pale and aghast. She could not speak.

“Ah, now I know why this flesh crept, and the blood fell back upon my heart, when that vicious old man was near! My life rose up against the outrage of its own being. I tell you, woman, if this man is my father, I hate him!”

“And me,” faltered Zillah, shuddering.

“And you, negro-slave that you are.”

“I am neither a negro or a slave,” answered Zillah, recovering a portion of her haughtiness; “the taint of my blood has died out in yours. Look on me, unfeeling girl, and say where you find a trace of the African not in this hair, it is straight and glossy as Mabel Harrington’s not on my forehead, see how smooth it is not in my heart or brain, for when did an African ever have the mind to invent, or the courage to carry out, the designs that fill my brain? I tell you, girl, your mother has neither the look nor the soul of a slave; but she has will, and power, and a purpose, too, that shall lift her child so high, that the whitest woman of her father’s race will yet be proud to render her homage!”

“Dreaming, dreaming!” exclaimed Agnes, scornfully.