of her.
'And here I am at last, Leta—as yourself, a slave!' he concluded.
'Courage, my friend!' was her answer. 'There are very many degrees and fates reserved for all in this old Rome, and much for every man to learn. And many a one who has begun as a slave has, in the end, attained not only to freedom, but to high honor and station.'
'If the gods were to give me honor and station, far be it from me to refuse the gift,' he said. 'But that, of itself alone, would not content me, unless you were there to share the good with me. And with yourself I would crave no other blessing. We are slaves here, Leta, but even that fate may have its mitigations and happiness for us.'
She was silent. How could she tell it to him? But his suspicions, at first vague, were now aroused by her very silence into more certainty.
'Tell me,' he cried, again taking her hand, 'tell me my fate; and if sorrow is to come upon me, let it come now. It seems as though there were indeed evil tidings in store for me. The blight of anticipated evil even weighed upon me ere I passed yonder hall, and when I knew no reason why I should not find you loving of heart and humble of desire as in other days. Is it all gone? Are you no longer the same? This tawdry velvet in which I found you arrayed—is it the type of a something equally foreign to your nature, and which imperial Rome has thrown about you to aid in crushing out the better feelings of your heart?'
'My friend, my brother,' she said at length, with some real pity and some false sorrow, 'why have we again met? Why is it now forced upon me to tell you that the past must always be the past with us?'
He dropped her hand, and the tears started into his eyes. Much as the words and gestures of the last few minutes had prepared him for the announcement, yet when it came, it smote him as though there had been no premonition of it; so lovingly had his heart persisted in clinging to the faint hope that he might have been mistaken. A low wail of anguish burst from his lips.
'And this is the end of all?' he sobbed.
'Think only,' she said, 'think only that I am not worthy of you.'
'The old story—the old story which has been repeated from the beginning of the world,' he cried, stung into life by something of heartlessness which he detected in her affected sympathy. 'The woman weaves her toils about the man—gilds his life until there is no brightness which can compare with it—fills his heart with high hopes of a blissful future—so changes his soul that he can cherish no thought but of her—so alters the whole tenor and purpose of his existence that he even welcomes slavery as a precious boon because it brings him under the same roof with her. And then—some other fancy having crossed her mind—or an absence of a week or two having produced forgetfulness—she insults him with a cruel mockery of self-unworthiness as her sole apology for perfidy.'
'Nay,' she exclaimed, half glad of an excuse to quarrel with him. 'If you would rather have it otherwise, think, then, that I have never loved you as I should, even though I may have imagined that I did.'
'Go on,' he said, seeing that she hesitated.
'I know,' she continued, 'that in other days you have had my words for it, uttered, indeed, in sympathy and truth, as I then felt them. But I was a simple girl, then, Cleotos. The sea before me and the mountains behind bounded all my knowledge of the world. The people whom I saw were but few. The tastes I had were simple. Is it wonderful that I should have listened to the first one who spoke to me of love, and should have imagined that my heart made response to him? But now, now, Cleotos—'
'Now, what?' he exclaimed. 'Would you say that now you have seen the world better and think differently? What is there in all that you have since known that should change you? Is it that the sight of war and tumult—of burning towns and bleeding captives—of insolent soldiers and cruel taskmasters can have made you less in favor with our own native, vine-covered retreat, with its neighborhood of simple peasantry? Or would you say that since then you have met others whom you can love better than me? Whom, indeed, have you seen but weary prisoners like myself, or else unpitying conquerors whose love would be your shame? You blush, Leta! Pray the gods that it be not the latter! Struggle sternly with yourself to realize that you are merely for the moment fascinated by the unaccustomed splendors of this swarming city; and that after its first brightness has worn off from your dazzled eyes, your soul may return to its native, pure simplicity and innocence, and—and to me.'
'Speak not so, Cleotos,' she responded. 'My eyes are not dazzled with any splendors; but for all that, our ways now and forever lie in different directions. We are slaves, and can give little heed to our affections. Our only course must be for each to strive to rise above this serfdom; and if, in doing so, either can help the other, it must be done—but in friendship, not in love. To you, through good conduct, there may open, even in slavery, many posts of influence and profit; and, in so much, of better worth than our own boasted liberty with poverty. And as for me—I see my destiny already beckoning me to a position such as many a free Roman woman might envy.'
Speaking thus obscurely of her anticipated grandeur—to be gained, perhaps, by abasement, but none the less in her mind certain to end in such legitimate position as might sanctify the previous steps thereto—her face again lit up with a glow of pride, as though she were already the powerful patrician's wife. And revelling in such dreams, she saw not the agony which overspread her listener's face as he read her thoughts partly awrong, and believed her content to throw herself away forever, in order to gain some temporary exaltation as a wealthy Roman's plaything.
'And when that day does come,' she continued, 'if, for the memory of our old friendship, I can help to elevate you to some better sphere—'
'Enough! No more!' he cried bitterly; and starting from her, he fled out of the room. It were hard enough that he should lose her, harder yet that he should hear her marking out for herself a life of ruin for some temporary gain, but harder than all, that she should dare to mistake his nature so far as to insult him with the promise of aiding his prosperity through such an influence.
'Let me go hence!' he cried, in his agony, to Ænone, who, still radiant with her newly discovered hope, met him at the door. 'Send me to the captain Polidorus—anywhere—only let me leave this house!'
AMERICAN SLAVERY AND FINANCES
[The following article, from the pen of Hon. R. J. Walker, forms the Appendix to the volume just published in England, and now exciting great attention there, containing the various pamphlets issued by him during the last six months. The subjects discussed embrace Jefferson Davis and Repudiation, Recognition, Slavery, Finances and Resources of the United States. It would be difficult to overestimate the effect of these Letters abroad. As our readers already possess them in the pages of The Continental, we enable them to complete the series by furnishing the ensuing Appendix. It closes with an extract from an 'Introductory Address' delivered by Mr. Walker before the National Institute, at Washington, D. C., giving a short account of the various improvements and discoveries made by our countrymen in the Inductive Sciences. As showing to England what a high rank we had even then taken in the world of science, and pointing out to her the number and fame of our savants, it will be read with just pride and interest. As the Address was delivered in 1844, it of course contains no details of our marvellous progress since that date in science and discovery.—Ed. Continental.]
We have seen by the Census Tables, if the product per capita of the Slave States in 1859 had been equal to that of the Free States for that year, that the ADDITIONAL value produced in 1859 in the Slave States would have been $1,531,631,000. Now as our population augmented during that decade 35.59 per cent., this increased value, at that ratio, in 1869 would have been $2,052,332,272. If multiplying the amount each year by three only, instead of 3-559/1000 the result, during that decade, would have been as follows:
