The Earth Trembled. Edward Payson Roe

good would that do, Aunty? If we can't earn anything, five dollars will be as hard to raise as ten."

      "Oh, to think that people of the very best blood in the State, who once had scores of slaves to work for them, should be so wronged, robbed and reduced!"

      Mara heaved a long, weary sigh, and Clancy's words would repeat themselves again and again. She saw how utterly incapable her aunt was to render any assistance in their desperate straits. Even the stress of their present emergency could not prevent her mind from vainly reverting to a past that was gone forever. Again her confidence was more severely shaken as she was compelled to doubt the wisdom of their habits of seclusion and reticence, of living on from year to year engrossed by memories, instead of adapting themselves to a new order of things which they were powerless to prevent. "Truly," she thought, "my father and mother never could have wished me to be in this situation out of love for them. It is true I could never go to the length that he does without great hypocrisy, and I do not see the need of it. I can never forget the immense wrong done to me and mine, but Aunty should have taught me something more than indignation and hostility, however just the causes for them may be."

      While such was the tenor of her thoughts, she only said a little bitterly: "Oh, that I knew how to do something! My old nurse, Aun' Sheba, is better off than we are."

      "She belongs to us yet," said Mrs. Hunter, almost fiercely.

      "You could never make her or any one else think so," was the weary reply. "Well, now that I have thought of her, I believe I could advise with her better than any one else."

      "Advise with a slave? Oh, Mara!—"

      "Whom shall I advise with then?" And there was a sharp ring in the girl's tone.

      "Oh, any one, so that it be not Mr. Clancy," replied her aunt irritably. "Were it not that you so needed a protector, I could wish that I were dead."

      "Aunt," said Mara, gently yet firmly, "we must give up this hopeless, bitter kind of talk. I, at least, must do something to earn honest bread, and I am too depressed and sad at heart to carry any useless burdens. Mr. Clancy said much that was wrong last night, and there are matters about which he and I can never agree, but surely he was right in saying that my father and mother would not wish to see me crushed body and soul. If I am to live, I must find a way to live and yet keep my self-respect. I suppose the natural way would be to go to those who knew my father and grandfather; but they would ask me what I could do. What could I tell them? It would seem almost like asking charity."

      "Of course it would," assented her aunt.

      Then silence fell between them.

      Before Mara could finish her morning duties and prepare for the street, a heavy step was heard on the stairs, then a knock at the door. Opening it, the young girl saw the very object of her thoughts, for Aun' Sheba's ample form and her great basket filled all the space.

      "Oh, Aun' Sheba," cried the girl, a gleam of hope lighting up her eyes,

       "I'm so glad to see you. I was just starting for your cabin."

      "Bress your heart, honey, Aun' Sheba'll allus be proud to hab you come. My spec's, Missus," and she dropped her basket and a courtesy before Mrs. Hunter.

      "Aun' Sheba," said Mara, giving the kindly vender a chair, "you are so much better off than we are. I was saying just that to aunty this morning."

      "Why, honey, I'se only a po' culled body, and you'se a beauty like you moder, bress her po' deah heart."

      "Yes, Aun' Sheba, you were a blessing to her," said Mara with moist eyes. "How you watched over her and helped to take care of me! Perhaps you can help take care of me again. For some reason, I can speak to you and tell you our troubles easier than to any one else in the world."

      "Dat's right, honey lam', dat's right. Who else you tell your troubles to but Aun' Sheba? Didn't I comfort you on dis bery bres time an' time agin when you was a little mite? Now you'se bigger and hab bigger troubles, I'se bigger too," and Aunt Sheba shook with laughter like a great form of jelly as she wiped her eyes with sympathy.

      "Aun' Sheba," said Mara in a voice full of unconscious pathos, "I don't know what to do, yet I must do something. It seems to me that I could be almost happy if I were as sure of earning my bread as you are."

      "Now, doggone dat ar lazy husban' o' mine. But he got his 'serts an'll git mo' ob dem eff he ain't keerful. I jes' felt it in my bones las' night how 'twas wid you, an I 'lowed how I'd see you dis mawnin', an' den he began to go on as ef you was nothin' but white folks stid ob my deah honey lam' dat I nussed till you was like my own chile. But he won' do so no mo'."

      "Oh, Aun' Sheba, believe me, I don't wish to interfere with any of your duties to him," began Mara earnestly.

      "Duty to him," exclaimed the colored woman with a snort of indignation. "He mout tink a little 'bout his duty to me. Doan you trubble 'bout him, for he's boun' to git mo' dan his shar anyhow. Now I know de good Lawd put it in my min' to come heah dis mawnin' case you was on my min' las' night. You needn't tink you kin go hungry while Aun' Sheba hab a crus'."

      "I know what a big heart you've got, but that won't do, Aun' Sheba. Can you think I would live idly on your hard-earned money?"

      "Well, 'tis my money, an' I make mo dan you tink, an' a heap mo' dan I let Unc. know about. He'd be fer settin' up his kerrige ef he knew," and she again laughed in hearty self-complacency. "Why, honey, I can 'sport you an' Missus widout pinchin', an' who gwine to know 'bout it?"

      "I'd know about it," said Mara, rising and putting her hand caressingly on the woman's shoulder, "yet I feel your kindness in the very depths of my heart. Come, I have a thought. Let me see what's in your basket."

      "Ony cakes dis mawnin', honey. Help you's sef."

      "Oh, how delicious they are," said Mara eating one, and thoughtfully regarding her sable friend. "You beat me making cakes, Aun' Sheba, and I thought I was good at it."

      "So you am, Missy, so you am, fer I taught you mysef."

      "Aun' Sheba, suppose we go into partnership."

      "Pahnaship!" ejaculated Aun' Sheba in bewilderment.

      "Oh, Mara!" Mrs. Hunter expostulated indignantly.

      "Well, I suppose it would be a very one-sided affair," admitted the girl, blushing in a sort of honest shame. "You are doing well without any help from me, and don't need any. I'm very much like a man who wants to share in a good business which has already been built up, but I don't know how to do anything else, and could at least learn better every day, and—and—I thought—I must do something—I thought, perhaps, if I made the cakes and some other things, and you sold them, Aun' Sheba, you wouldn't have to work so hard, and—well, there might be enough profit for us both."

      "Now de Lawd bress you heart, honey, dar ain't no need ob you blisterin' you'se pretty face ober a fiah, bakin' cakes an' sich. I kin—"

      "No, no, Aun' Sheba, you can't, for I won't let you."

      "Mara," protested Mrs. Hunter, severely, "do you realize what you are saying? Suppose it became known that you were in—in—" but the lady could not bring herself to complete the humiliating sentence.

      "Yis, honey, Missus am right. De idee! Sech quality as you in pahnaship wid ole Aun' Sheba!" and she laughed at the preposterous relationship.

      "Perhaps it needn't be known," said Mara, daunted for a moment. Then the necessities in the case drove her forward, and, remembering that her aunt was unable to suggest or even contemplate anything practicable, she said resolutely, "Let it be known. Others of our social rank are supporting themselves, and I'm too proud to be ashamed to do it myself even in this humble way. What troubles me most is that I'm making such a one-sided offer to Aun' Sheba. She don't need my help at all, and I need hers so much."

      "Now see heah, honey, is your heart set on dis ting?"

      "Yes, it is," replied Mara, earnestly. "My heart was like lead till you came, and it would