Since the thread of our humble hero's life has now become interwovenwith that of higher ones, it is necessary to give some briefintroduction to them.

Augustine St. Clare was the son of a wealthy planter of Louisiana.The family had its origin in Canada. Of two brothers, very similar intemperament and character, one had settled on a flourishing farm inVermont, and the other became an opulent planter in Louisiana. Themother of Augustine was a Huguenot French lady, whose family hademigrated to Louisiana during the days of its early settlement.Augustine and another brother were the only children of their parents.Having inherited from his mother an exceeding delicacy of constitution,he was, at the instance of physicians, during many years of his boyhood,sent to the care of his uncle in Vermont, in order that his constitutionmight be strengthened by the cold of a more bracing climate.

In childhood, he was remarkable for an extreme and marked sensitivenessof character, more akin to the softness of woman than the ordinaryhardness of his own sex. Time, however, overgrew this softness with therough bark of manhood, and but few knew how living and fresh it stilllay at the core. His talents were of the very first order, although hismind showed a preference always for the ideal and the aesthetic, andthere was about him that repugnance to the actual business of life whichis the common result of this balance of the faculties. Soon after thecompletion of his college course, his whole nature was kindled intoone intense and passionate effervescence of romantic passion. Hishour came,--the hour that comes only once; his star rose in thehorizon,--that star that rises so often in vain, to be rememberedonly as a thing of dreams; and it rose for him in vain. To drop thefigure,--he saw and won the love of a high-minded and beautiful woman,in one of the northern states, and they were affianced. He returnedsouth to make arrangements for their marriage, when, most unexpectedly,his letters were returned to him by mail, with a short note from herguardian, stating to him that ere this reached him the lady would be thewife of another. Stung to madness, he vainly hoped, as many another hasdone, to fling the whole thing from his heart by one desperate effort.Too proud to supplicate or seek explanation, he threw himself at onceinto a whirl of fashionable society, and in a fortnight from the timeof the fatal letter was the accepted lover of the reigning belle of theseason; and as soon as arrangements could be made, he became the husbandof a fine figure, a pair of bright dark eyes, and a hundred thousanddollars; and, of course, everybody thought him a happy fellow.

The married couple were enjoying their honeymoon, and entertaininga brilliant circle of friends in their splendid villa, near LakePontchartrain, when, one day, a letter was brought to him in _that_well-remembered writing. It was handed to him while he was in full tideof gay and successful conversation, in a whole room-full of company.He turned deadly pale when he saw the writing, but still preserved hiscomposure, and finished the playful warfare of badinage which he was atthe moment carrying on with a lady opposite; and, a short time after,was missed from the circle. In his room, alone, he opened and read theletter, now worse than idle and useless to be read. It was from her,giving a long account of a persecution to which she had been exposed byher guardian's family, to lead her to unite herself with their son: andshe related how, for a long time, his letters had ceased to arrive; howshe had written time and again, till she became weary and doubtful; howher health had failed under her anxieties, and how, at last, she haddiscovered the whole fraud which had been practised on them both. Theletter ended with expressions of hope and thankfulness, and professionsof undying affection, which were more bitter than death to the unhappyyoung man. He wrote to her immediately:

"I have received yours,--but too late. I believed all I heard. I wasdesperate. _I am married_, and all is over. Only forget,--it is all thatremains for either of us."

And thus ended the whole romance and ideal of life for Augustine St.Clare. But the _real_ remained,--the _real_, like the flat, bare, oozytide-mud, when the blue sparkling wave, with all its company of glidingboats and white-winged ships, its music of oars and chiming waters, hasgone down, and there it lies, flat, slimy, bare,--exceedingly real.

Of course, in a novel, people's hearts break, and they die, and that isthe end of it; and in a story this is very convenient. But in real lifewe do not die when all that makes life bright dies to us. There is amost busy and important round of eating, drinking, dressing, walking,visiting, buying, selling, talking, reading, and all that makes upwhat is commonly called _living_, yet to be gone through; and this yetremained to Augustine. Had his wife been a whole woman, she might yethave done something--as woman can--to mend the broken threads of life,and weave again into a tissue of brightness. But Marie St. Clare couldnot even see that they had been broken. As before stated, she consistedof a fine figure, a pair of splendid eyes, and a hundred thousanddollars; and none of these items were precisely the ones to minister toa mind diseased.

When Augustine, pale as death, was found lying on the sofa, and pleadedsudden sick-headache as the cause of his distress, she recommended tohim to smell of hartshorn; and when the paleness and headache came onweek after week, she only said that she never thought Mr. St. Clare wassickly; but it seems he was very liable to sick-headaches, and that itwas a very unfortunate thing for her, because he didn't enjoy going intocompany with her, and it seemed odd to go so much alone, when they werejust married. Augustine was glad in his heart that he had married soundiscerning a woman; but as the glosses and civilities of the honeymoonwore away, he discovered that a beautiful young woman, who has lived allher life to be caressed and waited on, might prove quite a hardmistress in domestic life. Marie never had possessed much capability ofaffection, or much sensibility, and the little that she had, had beenmerged into a most intense and unconscious selfishness; a selfishnessthe more hopeless, from its quiet obtuseness, its utter ignorance ofany claims but her own. From her infancy, she had been surrounded withservants, who lived only to study her caprices; the idea that they hadeither feelings or rights had never dawned upon her, even in distantperspective. Her father, whose only child she had been, had never deniedher anything that lay within the compass of human possibility; and whenshe entered life, beautiful, accomplished, and an heiress, she had, ofcourse, all the eligibles and non-eligibles of the other sex sighing ather feet, and she had no doubt that Augustine was a most fortunate manin having obtained her. It is a great mistake to suppose that a womanwith no heart will be an easy creditor in the exchange of affection.There is not on earth a more merciless exactor of love from others thana thoroughly selfish woman; and the more unlovely she grows, the morejealously and scrupulously she exacts love, to the uttermost farthing.When, therefore, St. Clare began to drop off those gallantries and smallattentions which flowed at first through the habitude of courtship, hefound his sultana no way ready to resign her slave; there were abundanceof tears, poutings, and small tempests, there were discontents, pinings,upbraidings. St. Clare was good-natured and self-indulgent, and soughtto buy off with presents and flatteries; and when Marie became mother toa beautiful daughter, he really felt awakened, for a time, to somethinglike tenderness.

St. Clare's mother had been a woman of uncommon elevation and purity ofcharacter, and he gave to his child his mother's name, fondly fancyingthat she would prove a reproduction of her image. The thing had beenremarked with petulant jealousy by his wife, and she regarded herhusband's absorbing devotion to the child with suspicion and dislike;all that was given to her seemed so much taken from herself. From thetime of the birth of this child, her health gradually sunk. A life ofconstant inaction, bodily and mental,--the friction of ceaseless ennuiand discontent, united to the ordinary weakness which attended theperiod of maternity,--in course of a few years changed the bloomingyoung belle into a yellow faded, sickly woman, whose time was dividedamong a variety of fanciful diseases, and who considered herself, inevery sense, the most ill-used and suffering person in existence.

There was no end of her various complaints; but her principal forteappeared to lie in sick-headache, which sometimes would confine her toher room three days out of six. As, of course, all family arrangementsfell into the hands of servants, St. Clare found his menage anything butcomfortable. His only daughter was exceedingly delicate, and he fearedthat, with no one to look after her and attend to her, her health andlife might yet fall a sacrifice to her mother's inefficiency. He hadtaken her with him on a tour to Vermont, and had persuaded his cousin,Miss Ophelia St. Clare, to return with him to his southern residence;and they are now returning on this boat, where we have introduced themto our readers.

And now, while the distant domes and spires of New Orleans rise to ourview, there is yet time for an introduction to Miss Ophelia.

Whoever has travelled in the New England States will remember, in somecool village, the large farmhouse, with its clean-swept grassy yard,shaded by the dense and massive foliage of the sugar maple; and rememberthe air of order and stillness, of perpetuity and unchanging repose,that seemed to breathe over the whole place. Nothing lost, or out oforder; not a picket loose in the fence, not a particle of litter inthe turfy yard, with its clumps of lilac bushes growing up under thewindows. Within, he will remember wide, clean rooms, where nothing everseems to be doing or going to be done, where everything is once andforever rigidly in place, and where all household arrangements move withthe punctual exactness of the old clock in the corner. In the family"keeping-room," as it is termed, he will remember the staid, respectableold book-case, with its glass doors, where Rollin's History,* Milton'sParadise Lost, Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, and Scott's Family Bible,**stand side by side in decorous order, with multitudes of other books,equally solemn and respectable. There are no servants in the house, butthe lady in the snowy cap, with the spectacles, who sits sewing everyafternoon among her daughters, as if nothing ever had been done, or wereto be done,--she and her girls, in some long-forgotten fore part of theday, "_did up the work_," and for the rest of the time, probably, at allhours when you would see them, it is "_done up_." The old kitchen floornever seems stained or spotted; the tables, the chairs, and the variouscooking utensils, never seem deranged or disordered; though three andsometimes four meals a day are got there, though the family washing andironing is there performed, and though pounds of butter and cheese arein some silent and mysterious manner there brought into existence.

* _The Ancient History_, ten volumes (1730-1738), by the French historian Charles Rollin (1661-1741).

** _Scott's Family Bible_ (1788-1792), edited with notes by the English Biblical commentator, Thomas Scott (1747-1821).

On such a farm, in such a house and family, Miss Ophelia had spent aquiet existence of some forty-five years, when her cousin invited her tovisit his southern mansion. The eldest of a large family, she was stillconsidered by her father and mother as one of "the children," and theproposal that she should go to _Orleans_ was a most momentous one to thefamily circle. The old gray-headed father took down Morse's Atlas* outof the book-case, and looked out the exact latitude and longitude; andread Flint's Travels in the South and West,** to make up his own mind asto the nature of the country.

* _The Cerographic Atlas of the United States_ (1842-1845), by Sidney Edwards Morse (1794-1871), son of the geographer, Jedidiah Morse, and brother of the painter-inventor, Samuel F. B. Morse.

** _Recollections of the Last Ten Years_ (1826) by Timothy Flint (1780-1840), missionary of Presbyterianism to the trans-Allegheny West.

The good mother inquired, anxiously, "if Orleans wasn't an awful wickedplace," saying, "that it seemed to her most equal to going to theSandwich Islands, or anywhere among the heathen."

It was known at the minister's and at the doctor's, and at MissPeabody's milliner shop, that Ophelia St. Clare was "talking about"going away down to Orleans with her cousin; and of course the wholevillage could do no less than help this very important process of_talking about_ the matter. The minister, who inclined strongly toabolitionist views, was quite doubtful whether such a step might nottend somewhat to encourage the southerners in holding on to theirslaves; while the doctor, who was a stanch colonizationist, inclined tothe opinion that Miss Ophelia ought to go, to show the Orleans peoplethat we don't think hardly of them, after all. He was of opinion, infact, that southern people needed encouraging. When however, the factthat she had resolved to go was fully before the public mind, she wassolemnly invited out to tea by all her friends and neighbors for thespace of a fortnight, and her prospects and plans duly canvassed andinquired into. Miss Moseley, who came into the house to help to dothe dress-making, acquired daily accessions of importance from thedevelopments with regard to Miss Ophelia's wardrobe which she had beenenabled to make. It was credibly ascertained that Squire Sinclare, ashis name was commonly contracted in the neighborhood, had counted outfifty dollars, and given them to Miss Ophelia, and told her to buy anyclothes she thought best; and that two new silk dresses, and a bonnet,had been sent for from Boston. As to the propriety of this extraordinaryoutlay, the public mind was divided,--some affirming that it was wellenough, all things considered, for once in one's life, and othersstoutly affirming that the money had better have been sent to themissionaries; but all parties agreed that there had been no such parasolseen in those parts as had been sent on from New York, and that she hadone silk dress that might fairly be trusted to stand alone, whatevermight be said of its mistress. There were credible rumors, also, of ahemstitched pocket-handkerchief; and report even went so far as tostate that Miss Ophelia had one pocket-handkerchief with lace all aroundit,--it was even added that it was worked in the corners; but thislatter point was never satisfactorily ascertained, and remains, in fact,unsettled to this day.

Miss Ophelia, as you now behold her, stands before you, in a veryshining brown linen travelling-dress, tall, square-formed, andangular. Her face was thin, and rather sharp in its outlines; the lipscompressed, like those of a person who is in the habit of making upher mind definitely on all subjects; while the keen, dark eyes had apeculiarly searching, advised movement, and travelled over everything,as if they were looking for something to take care of.

All her movements were sharp, decided, and energetic; and, though shewas never much of a talker, her words were remarkably direct, and to thepurpose, when she did speak.

In her habits, she was a living impersonation of order, method, andexactness. In punctuality, she was as inevitable as a clock, and asinexorable as a railroad engine; and she held in most decided contemptand abomination anything of a contrary character.

The great sin of sins, in her eyes,--the sum of all evils,--wasexpressed by one very common and important word in hervocabulary--"shiftlessness." Her finale and ultimatum of contemptconsisted in a very emphatic pronunciation of the word "shiftless;" andby this she characterized all modes of procedure which had not adirect and inevitable relation to accomplishment of some purpose thendefinitely had in mind. People who did nothing, or who did not knowexactly what they were going to do, or who did not take the most directway to accomplish what they set their hands to, were objects of herentire contempt,--a contempt shown less frequently by anything she said,than by a kind of stony grimness, as if she scorned to say anythingabout the matter.

As to mental cultivation,--she had a clear, strong, active mind, waswell and thoroughly read in history and the older English classics,and thought with great strength within certain narrow limits. Hertheological tenets were all made up, labelled in most positive anddistinct forms, and put by, like the bundles in her patch trunk; therewere just so many of them, and there were never to be any more.So, also, were her ideas with regard to most matters of practicallife,--such as housekeeping in all its branches, and the variouspolitical relations of her native village. And, underlying all, deeperthan anything else, higher and broader, lay the strongest principleof her being--conscientiousness. Nowhere is conscience so dominant andall-absorbing as with New England women. It is the granite formation,which lies deepest, and rises out, even to the tops of the highestmountains.

Miss Ophelia was the absolute bond-slave of the "_ought_." Once make hercertain that the "path of duty," as she commonly phrased it, lay inany given direction, and fire and water could not keep her from it. Shewould walk straight down into a well, or up to a loaded cannon's mouth,if she were only quite sure that there the path lay. Her standardof right was so high, so all-embracing, so minute, and making so fewconcessions to human frailty, that, though she strove with heroic ardorto reach it, she never actually did so, and of course was burdened witha constant and often harassing sense of deficiency;--this gave a severeand somewhat gloomy cast to her religious character.

But, how in the world can Miss Ophelia get along with AugustineSt. Clare,--gay, easy, unpunctual, unpractical, sceptical,--inshort,--walking with impudent and nonchalant freedom over every one ofher most cherished habits and opinions?

To tell the truth, then, Miss Ophelia loved him. When a boy, it had beenhers to teach him his catechism, mend his clothes, comb his hair, andbring him up generally in the way he should go; and her heart havinga warm side to it, Augustine had, as he usually did with most people,monopolized a large share of it for himself, and therefore it was thathe succeeded very easily in persuading her that the "path of duty" layin the direction of New Orleans, and that she must go with him to takecare of Eva, and keep everything from going to wreck and ruin during thefrequent illnesses of his wife. The idea of a house without anybodyto take care of it went to her heart; then she loved the lovely littlegirl, as few could help doing; and though she regarded Augustine as verymuch of a heathen, yet she loved him, laughed at his jokes, and forborewith his failings, to an extent which those who knew him thoughtperfectly incredible. But what more or other is to be known of MissOphelia our reader must discover by a personal acquaintance.

There she is, sitting now in her state-room, surrounded by a mixedmultitude of little and big carpet-bags, boxes, baskets, each containingsome separate responsibility which she is tying, binding up, packing, orfastening, with a face of great earnestness.

"Now, Eva, have you kept count of your things? Of course youhaven't,--children never do: there's the spotted carpet-bag and thelittle blue band-box with your best bonnet,--that's two; then the Indiarubber satchel is three; and my tape and needle box is four; and myband-box, five; and my collar-box; and that little hair trunk, seven.What have you done with your sunshade? Give it to me, and let me put apaper round it, and tie it to my umbrella with my shade;--there, now."

"Why, aunty, we are only going up home;--what is the use?"

"To keep it nice, child; people must take care of their things, if theyever mean to have anything; and now, Eva, is your thimble put up?"

"Really, aunty, I don't know."

"Well, never mind; I'll look your box over,--thimble, wax, two spools,scissors, knife, tape-needle; all right,--put it in here. What did youever do, child, when you were coming on with only your papa. I shouldhave thought you'd a lost everything you had."

"Well, aunty, I did lose a great many; and then, when we stoppedanywhere, papa would buy some more of whatever it was."

"Mercy on us, child,--what a way!"

"It was a very easy way, aunty," said Eva.

"It's a dreadful shiftless one," said aunty.

"Why, aunty, what'll you do now?" said Eva; "that trunk is too full tobe shut down."

"It _must_ shut down," said aunty, with the air of a general, as shesqueezed the things in, and sprung upon the lid;--still a little gapremained about the mouth of the trunk.

"Get up here, Eva!" said Miss Ophelia, courageously; "what has been donecan be done again. This trunk has _got to be_ shut and locked--there areno two ways about it."

And the trunk, intimidated, doubtless, by this resolute statement, gavein. The hasp snapped sharply in its hole, and Miss Ophelia turned thekey, and pocketed it in triumph.

"Now we're ready. Where's your papa? I think it time this baggage wasset out. Do look out, Eva, and see if you see your papa."

"O, yes, he's down the other end of the gentlemen's cabin, eating anorange."

"He can't know how near we are coming," said aunty; "hadn't you betterrun and speak to him?"

"Papa never is in a hurry about anything," said Eva, "and we haven'tcome to the landing. Do step on the guards, aunty. Look! there's ourhouse, up that street!"

The boat now began, with heavy groans, like some vast, tired monster,to prepare to push up among the multiplied steamers at the levee. Evajoyously pointed out the various spires, domes, and way-marks, by whichshe recognized her native city.

"Yes, yes, dear; very fine," said Miss Ophelia. "But mercy on us! theboat has stopped! where is your father?"

And now ensued the usual turmoil of landing--waiters running twenty waysat once--men tugging trunks, carpet-bags, boxes--women anxiously callingto their children, and everybody crowding in a dense mass to the planktowards the landing.

Miss Ophelia seated herself resolutely on the lately vanquished trunk,and marshalling all her goods and chattels in fine military order,seemed resolved to defend them to the last.

"Shall I take your trunk, ma'am?" "Shall I take your baggage?" "Let me'tend to your baggage, Missis?" "Shan't I carry out these yer, Missis?"rained down upon her unheeded. She sat with grim determination, uprightas a darning-needle stuck in a board, holding on her bundle of umbrellaand parasols, and replying with a determination that was enough tostrike dismay even into a hackman, wondering to Eva, in each interval,"what upon earth her papa could be thinking of; he couldn't have fallenover, now,--but something must have happened;"--and just as she hadbegun to work herself into a real distress, he came up, with his usuallycareless motion, and giving Eva a quarter of the orange he was eating,said,

"Well, Cousin Vermont, I suppose you are all ready."

"I've been ready, waiting, nearly an hour," said Miss Ophelia; "I beganto be really concerned about you.

"That's a clever fellow, now," said he. "Well, the carriage is waiting,and the crowd are now off, so that one can walk out in a decent andChristian manner, and not be pushed and shoved. Here," he added to adriver who stood behind him, "take these things."

"I'll go and see to his putting them in," said Miss Ophelia.

"O, pshaw, cousin, what's the use?" said St. Clare.

"Well, at any rate, I'll carry this, and this, and this," said MissOphelia, singling out three boxes and a small carpet-bag.

"My dear Miss Vermont, positively you mustn't come the Green Mountainsover us that way. You must adopt at least a piece of a southernprinciple, and not walk out under all that load. They'll take you for awaiting-maid; give them to this fellow; he'll put them down as if theywere eggs, now."

Miss Ophelia looked despairingly as her cousin took all her treasuresfrom her, and rejoiced to find herself once more in the carriage withthem, in a state of preservation.

"Where's Tom?" said Eva.

"O, he's on the outside, Pussy. I'm going to take Tom up to mother fora peace-offering, to make up for that drunken fellow that upset thecarriage."

"O, Tom will make a splendid driver, I know," said Eva; "he'll never getdrunk."

The carriage stopped in front of an ancient mansion, built in that oddmixture of Spanish and French style, of which there are specimens insome parts of New Orleans. It was built in the Moorish fashion,--asquare building enclosing a court-yard, into which the carriage drovethrough an arched gateway. The court, in the inside, had evidentlybeen arranged to gratify a picturesque and voluptuous ideality. Widegalleries ran all around the four sides, whose Moorish arches, slenderpillars, and arabesque ornaments, carried the mind back, as in a dream,to the reign of oriental romance in Spain. In the middle of the court, afountain threw high its silvery water, falling in a never-ceasing sprayinto a marble basin, fringed with a deep border of fragrant violets. Thewater in the fountain, pellucid as crystal, was alive with myriads ofgold and silver fishes, twinkling and darting through it like so manyliving jewels. Around the fountain ran a walk, paved with a mosaicof pebbles, laid in various fanciful patterns; and this, again, wassurrounded by turf, smooth as green velvet, while a carriage-driveenclosed the whole. Two large orange-trees, now fragrant with blossoms,threw a delicious shade; and, ranged in a circle round upon the turf,were marble vases of arabesque sculpture, containing the choicestflowering plants of the tropics. Huge pomegranate trees, with theirglossy leaves and flame-colored flowers, dark-leaved Arabian jessamines,with their silvery stars, geraniums, luxuriant roses bending beneaththeir heavy abundance of flowers, golden jessamines, lemon-scentedverbenum, all united their bloom and fragrance, while here and there amystic old aloe, with its strange, massive leaves, sat looking like someold enchanter, sitting in weird grandeur among the more perishable bloomand fragrance around it.

The galleries that surrounded the court were festooned with a curtainof some kind of Moorish stuff, and could be drawn down at pleasure, toexclude the beams of the sun. On the whole, the appearance of the placewas luxurious and romantic.

As the carriage drove in, Eva seemed like a bird ready to burst from acage, with the wild eagerness of her delight.

"O, isn't it beautiful, lovely! my own dear, darling home!" she said toMiss Ophelia. "Isn't it beautiful?"

"'T is a pretty place," said Miss Ophelia, as she alighted; "though itlooks rather old and heathenish to me."

Tom got down from the carriage, and looked about with an air of calm,still enjoyment. The negro, it must be remembered, is an exotic of themost gorgeous and superb countries of the world, and he has, deep in hisheart, a passion for all that is splendid, rich, and fanciful; a passionwhich, rudely indulged by an untrained taste, draws on them the ridiculeof the colder and more correct white race.

St. Clare, who was in heart a poetical voluptuary, smiled as MissOphelia made her remark on his premises, and, turning to Tom, who wasstanding looking round, his beaming black face perfectly radiant withadmiration, he said,

"Tom, my boy, this seems to suit you."

"Yes, Mas'r, it looks about the right thing," said Tom.

All this passed in a moment, while trunks were being hustled off,hackman paid, and while a crowd, of all ages and sizes,--men, women, andchildren,--came running through the galleries, both above and belowto see Mas'r come in. Foremost among them was a highly-dressed youngmulatto man, evidently a very _distingue_ personage, attired in theultra extreme of the mode, and gracefully waving a scented cambrichandkerchief in his hand.

This personage had been exerting himself, with great alacrity, indriving all the flock of domestics to the other end of the verandah.

"Back! all of you. I am ashamed of you," he said, in a tone ofauthority. "Would you intrude on Master's domestic relations, in thefirst hour of his return?"

All looked abashed at this elegant speech, delivered with quite an air,and stood huddled together at a respectful distance, except two stoutporters, who came up and began conveying away the baggage.

Owing to Mr. Adolph's systematic arrangements, when St. Clare turnedround from paying the hackman, there was nobody in view but Mr. Adolphhimself, conspicuous in satin vest, gold guard-chain, and white pants,and bowing with inexpressible grace and suavity.

"Ah, Adolph, is it you?" said his master, offering his hand to him;"how are you, boy?" while Adolph poured forth, with great fluency, anextemporary speech, which he had been preparing, with great care, for afortnight before.

"Well, well," said St. Clare, passing on, with his usual air ofnegligent drollery, "that's very well got up, Adolph. See that thebaggage is well bestowed. I'll come to the people in a minute;" and,so saying, he led Miss Ophelia to a large parlor that opened on theverandah.

While this had been passing, Eva had flown like a bird, through theporch and parlor, to a little boudoir opening likewise on the verandah.

A tall, dark-eyed, sallow woman, half rose from a couch on which she wasreclining.

"Mamma!" said Eva, in a sort of a rapture, throwing herself on her neck,and embracing her over and over again.

"That'll do,--take care, child,--don't, you make my head ache," said themother, after she had languidly kissed her.

St. Clare came in, embraced his wife in true, orthodox, husbandlyfashion, and then presented to her his cousin. Marie lifted her largeeyes on her cousin with an air of some curiosity, and received her withlanguid politeness. A crowd of servants now pressed to the entrydoor, and among them a middle-aged mulatto woman, of very respectableappearance, stood foremost, in a tremor of expectation and joy, at thedoor.

"O, there's Mammy!" said Eva, as she flew across the room; and, throwingherself into her arms, she kissed her repeatedly.

This woman did not tell her that she made her head ache, but, on thecontrary, she hugged her, and laughed, and cried, till her sanity was athing to be doubted of; and when released from her, Eva flew from oneto another, shaking hands and kissing, in a way that Miss Opheliaafterwards declared fairly turned her stomach.

"Well!" said Miss Ophelia, "you southern children can do something that_I_ couldn't."

"What, now, pray?" said St. Clare.

"Well, I want to be kind to everybody, and I wouldn't have anythinghurt; but as to kissing--"

"Niggers," said St. Clare, "that you're not up to,--hey?"

"Yes, that's it. How can she?"

St. Clare laughed, as he went into the passage. "Halloa, here, what'sto pay out here? Here, you all--Mammy, Jimmy, Polly, Sukey--glad to seeMas'r?" he said, as he went shaking hands from one to another. "Look outfor the babies!" he added, as he stumbled over a sooty little urchin,who was crawling upon all fours. "If I step upon anybody, let 'emmention it."

There was an abundance of laughing and blessing Mas'r, as St. Claredistributed small pieces of change among them.

"Come, now, take yourselves off, like good boys and girls," he said; andthe whole assemblage, dark and light, disappeared through a door into alarge verandah, followed by Eva, who carried a large satchel, which shehad been filling with apples, nuts, candy, ribbons, laces, and toys ofevery description, during her whole homeward journey.

As St. Clare turned to go back his eye fell upon Tom, who was standinguneasily, shifting from one foot to the other, while Adolph stoodnegligently leaning against the banisters, examining Tom through anopera-glass, with an air that would have done credit to any dandyliving.

"Puh! you puppy," said his master, striking down the opera glass; "isthat the way you treat your company? Seems to me, Dolph," he added,laying his finger on the elegant figured satin vest that Adolph wassporting, "seems to me that's _my_ vest."

"O! Master, this vest all stained with wine; of course, a gentleman inMaster's standing never wears a vest like this. I understood I was totake it. It does for a poor nigger-fellow, like me."

And Adolph tossed his head, and passed his fingers through his scentedhair, with a grace.

"So, that's it, is it?" said St. Clare, carelessly. "Well, here, I'mgoing to show this Tom to his mistress, and then you take him to thekitchen; and mind you don't put on any of your airs to him. He's worthtwo such puppies as you."

"Master always will have his joke," said Adolph, laughing. "I'mdelighted to see Master in such spirits."

"Here, Tom," said St. Clare, beckoning.

Tom entered the room. He looked wistfully on the velvet carpets, and thebefore unimagined splendors of mirrors, pictures, statues, and curtains,and, like the Queen of Sheba before Solomon, there was no more spirit inhim. He looked afraid even to set his feet down.

"See here, Marie," said St. Clare to his wife, "I've bought you acoachman, at last, to order. I tell you, he's a regular hearse forblackness and sobriety, and will drive you like a funeral, if you want.Open your eyes, now, and look at him. Now, don't say I never think aboutyou when I'm gone."

Marie opened her eyes, and fixed them on Tom, without rising.

"I know he'll get drunk," she said.

"No, he's warranted a pious and sober article."

"Well, I hope he may turn out well," said the lady; "it's more than Iexpect, though."

"Dolph," said St. Clare, "show Tom down stairs; and, mind yourself," headded; "remember what I told you."

Adolph tripped gracefully forward, and Tom, with lumbering tread, wentafter.

"He's a perfect behemoth!" said Marie.

"Come, now, Marie," said St. Clare, seating himself on a stool besideher sofa, "be gracious, and say something pretty to a fellow."

"You've been gone a fortnight beyond the time," said the lady, pouting.

"Well, you know I wrote you the reason."

"Such a short, cold letter!" said the lady.

"Dear me! the mail was just going, and it had to be that or nothing."

"That's just the way, always," said the lady; "always something to makeyour journeys long, and letters short."

"See here, now," he added, drawing an elegant velvet case out of hispocket, and opening it, "here's a present I got for you in New York."

It was a daguerreotype, clear and soft as an engraving, representing Evaand her father sitting hand in hand.

Marie looked at it with a dissatisfied air.

"What made you sit in such an awkward position?" she said.

"Well, the position may be a matter of opinion; but what do you think ofthe likeness?"

"If you don't think anything of my opinion in one case, I suppose youwouldn't in another," said the lady, shutting the daguerreotype.

"Hang the woman!" said St. Clare, mentally; but aloud he added, "Come,now, Marie, what do you think of the likeness? Don't be nonsensical,now."

"It's very inconsiderate of you, St. Clare," said the lady, "to insiston my talking and looking at things. You know I've been lying all daywith the sick-headache; and there's been such a tumult made ever sinceyou came, I'm half dead."

"You're subject to the sick-headache, ma'am!" said Miss Ophelia,suddenly rising from the depths of the large arm-chair, where she hadsat quietly, taking an inventory of the furniture, and calculating itsexpense.

"Yes, I'm a perfect martyr to it," said the lady.

"Juniper-berry tea is good for sick-headache," said Miss Ophelia; "atleast, Auguste, Deacon Abraham Perry's wife, used to say so; and she wasa great nurse."

"I'll have the first juniper-berries that get ripe in our garden bythe lake brought in for that special purpose," said St. Clare, gravelypulling the bell as he did so; "meanwhile, cousin, you must be wantingto retire to your apartment, and refresh yourself a little, after yourjourney. Dolph," he added, "tell Mammy to come here." The decent mulattowoman whom Eva had caressed so rapturously soon entered; she was dressedneatly, with a high red and yellow turban on her head, the recent giftof Eva, and which the child had been arranging on her head. "Mammy,"said St. Clare, "I put this lady under your care; she is tired,and wants rest; take her to her chamber, and be sure she is madecomfortable," and Miss Ophelia disappeared in the rear of Mammy.