Before he located, Louis concluded to visit the old homestead, and to present his beautiful young bride to his grandmother and Camilla.

He knew his adopted sister too well to fear that Minnie would fail to receive from her the warmest welcome, and so with eager heart he took passage on one of the Mississippi boats to New Orleans, intending to stop in the city a few days, and send word to Camilla; but just as he was passing from the levee to the hotel, he caught a glimpse of Camilla walking down the street, and stopping the carriage, he alighted, and spoke to her. She immediately recognized him, although his handsome face had become somewhat bronzed by exposure in camp and field.

“Do not go to the hotel,” she said, “you are heartily welcome, come home with me.”

“But my wife is along.”

“Never mind, she’s just as welcome as you are.”

“But, like myself, she is colored.”

“It does not matter. I should not think of your going to a hotel, while I have a home in the city.”

Camilla following, wondering how she would like the young wife. She had great kindness and compassion for the race, but as far as social equality was concerned, though she had her strong personal likings, yet, except with Louis, neither custom nor education had reconciled her to the maintenance of any equal, social relations with them.

“My wife,” said Louis, introducing Camilla to Minnie. Camilla immediately reached out her hand to the young wife, and gave her a cordial greeting, and they soon fell into a pleasant and animated conversation. Mutually they were attracted to each other, and when they reached their destination, Minnie had begun to feel quite at home with Camilla.

“How is Aunt Miriam, or rather, my grandmother?” said Louis.

“She is well, and often wonders what has become of her poor boy; but she always has persisted in believing that she would see you again, and I know her dear old eyes will run over with gladness. But things have changed very much since we parted. We have passed through the fire since I saw you, and our troubles are not over yet; but we are hoping for better days. But we are at home. Let us alight.”

And Louis and Minnie were ushered into a home whose quiet and refined beauty were very pleasant to the eye, for Camilla had inherited from her father his aesthetic tastes; had made her home and its surroundings models of loveliness. Half a dozen varieties of the sweetest and brightest roses clambered up the walls and arrayed them with a garb of rare beauty. Jessamines breathed their fragrance on the air; magnolias reared their stately heads and gladdened the eye with the exquisite beauty of their flowers.

“This is an unexpected pleasure,” said Camilla, removing Minnie’s bonnet, and gazing with unfeigned admiration upon her girlish face, “but really some one must enjoy this pleasure besides myself.”

Camilla rang the bell; a bright, smiling girl of about ten years appeared. “Tell Miriam,” she said, “to come; that her boy Louis is here.”

Miriam appeared immediately, and throwing her arms around his neck, gave vent to her feelings in a burst of joy. “I always said you’d come back. I’s prayed for you night and day, and I always believed I’d see you afore I died, and now my word’s come true. There’s nothing like having faith.”

“Here’s my wife,” said Louis, turning to Minnie.

“Your wife; is you married, honey? Well I hopes you’ll have a good time.”

Minnie came forward and gave her hand to Miriam, as Louis said, “This is my grandmother.”

A look of proud satisfaction passed over the old woman’s face, and a sudden joy lit up her eyes at these words of pleasant recognition.

“Ah, my child,” said Miriam, “We’s had a mighty heap of trouble since you left. Them miserable secesh searched the house all over for you, when you was gone, and they was mighty sassy; but we didn’t mind that, so they didn’t ketch you. How did you get along? We was dreadfully uneasy about you?”

Louis then told them of the kindness of the colored people, his thrilling adventures, and hair-breadth escapes, and unfolded to them his plans for the future.

Camilla listened with deep interest, and turning to Minnie, who had left the peaceful sunshine of her mother’s home to dwell in the midst of that rough and rude state of society, she said, “I cannot help feeling sad to see you exposing yourself to the dangers that lay around your path. The few Southern women who have been faithful to the flag have had a sad experience since the war. We have been ostracized and abused, and often our husbands have been brutally murdered, in a number of instances when they were faithful to the dear old flag. A friend of mine, who was an angel of mercy to the Union prisoners, dressing their wounds and carrying them relief, had a dear son, who always kept a Union flag at home, which he regarded with almost religious devotion. This made him a marked boy in the community, and during the war he was so cruelly beaten, by some young rebels, that he never recovered, and colored women who would wend their way under the darkness and cover of night to aid our suffering soldiers, were in danger of being flogged, if detected, and I understand that one did receive 75 lashes for such an offence, and I heard of another who was shot down like a dog, for giving bread to a prisoner, who said, ‘Mammy, I am starving.’ I think, (but I have no right to dictate to you) had I been you, and my home in the North, that I would have preferred staying there, where, to say the least, you could have had pleasanter social relations. You and Louis are nearer the white race than the colored. Why should you prefer the one to the other?”

“Because,” said Minnie, “the prejudices of society are so strong against the people with whom I am connected on my mother’s side, that I could not associate with white people on equal terms, without concealing my origin, and that I scorned to do. The first years of my life passed without my knowing that I was connected with the colored race; but when it was revealed to me by mother, who suddenly claimed me, at first I shrank from the social ostracism to which that knowledge doomed me, and it was some time before I was reconciled to the change. Oh, there are lessons of life that we never learn in the bowers of ease. They must be learned in the fire. For months life seemed to me a dull, sad thing, and for a while I did not care whether I lived or died, the sunshine had suddenly faded from my path, and the future looked so dark and cheerless. But now, when I look back upon those days of gloom and suffering, I think they were among the most fruitful of my life, for in those days of pain and sorrow my resolution was formed to join the fortunes of my mother’s race, and I resolved to brighten her old age with a joy, with a gladness she had never known in her youth. And how could I have done that had I left her unrecognized and palmed myself upon society as a white woman? And to tell you the truth, having passed most of my life in white society, I did not feel that the advantages of that society would have ever paid me for the loss of my self-respect, by passing as white, when I knew that I was colored; when I knew that any society, however cultivated, wealthy or refined, would not be a social gain to me, if my color and not my character must be my passport of admission. So, when I found out that I was colored, I made up my mind that I would neither be pitied nor patronized by my former friends; but that I would live out my own individuality and do for my race, as a colored woman, what I never could accomplish as a white woman.”

“I think I understand you,” said Camilla; “and although I tremble for you in the present state, yet you cannot do better than live out the earnest purpose of your life. I feel that we owe a great debt to the colored race, and I would aid and not hinder any hand that is ready to help do the needed work. I have felt for many years that slavery was wrong, and I am glad, from the bottom of my heart, that it has at last been destroyed. And what are your plans, Louis?”

“We are going to open a school, and devote our lives to the upbuilding of the future race. I intend entering into some plan to facilitate the freedmen in obtaining homes of their own. I want to see this newly enfranchised race adding its quota to the civilization of the land. I believe there is power and capacity, only let it have room for exercise and development. We demand no social equality, no supremacy of power. All we ask is that the American people will take their Christless, Godless prejudices out of the way, and give us a chance to grow, an opportunity to accept life, not merely as a matter of ease and indulgence, but of struggle, conquest, and achievement.”

“Yes,” said Camilla, “what you want and what the nation should be just enough to grant you is fair play.”

“Yes, that is what we want; to be known by our character, and not by our color; to be permitted to take whatever position in society we are fitted to fill. We do not want to be bolstered and propped up on the one hand, nor to be crushed and trampled down on the other.”

“Well, Louis, I think that we are coming to that. No, I cannot feel that all this baptism of fire and blood through which we have passed has been in vain. Slavery, as an institution, has been destroyed. Slavery, as an idea, still lives, but I believe that we shall outgrow this spirit of caste and proscription which still tarnishes our civilization, both North and South.”