But now, I am entering upon a new era. He is a married man--has left the paternal roof, and is forming new associations. The romance of the vine-covered cottage, with the girl of his heart--which, as fortune smiled, should gradually grow into the stately mansion, with none to share or distract the peculiar joys of early married life, when all is couleur de rose--were not for him. Life is too earnest for romance; for high and holy responsibilities, in the dispensations of an all-wise Providence, he has to meet and to discharge. He is young and inexperienced, but here are boys, bound to him by a new, but tender tie, just entering the most dangerous period of life, without their natural guides; here are girls, unused to the hard usages of misfortune, suddenly deprived of all "save innocence and Heaven," and he is their only earthly protector and friend. Our parents were both of English descent, and Virginians by birth. They were married young, and settled upon the hereditary estate of my mother, which consisted of a well-improved Virginia plantation. There they lived, with nothing to interrupt the quiet and ease of their existence, excepting the war of 1812-13, between the United States and England, when my father had to shoulder the musket, as captain of a volunteer company, and leave his family, to fight for his country. This was the only eventful period of their lives, until my father became fired with the Western Fever, that about that time (the year 1818) began to rage, and which resulted in the purchase and settlement of a cotton plantation in North Alabama. Alabama was then the Eldorado of the far West, and I well remember the disappointment I felt, upon our arrival there, at not seeing "money growing upon trees," and "good old apple brandy flowing from their trunks!" From this period commenced our misfortunes, which, although trying to my parents, were, by dint of energy and perseverance, readily overcome, at least so as to enable them to support and educate their growing family--securing the comforts of life, with some of its luxuries--until, very naturally, aiming at more than this, my father again made a sacrifice of much, with the hope of gaining the more, by removing to St. Louis--the result of which I have already told you. My father was honest, frank, social, communicative, and confiding. He possessed an unbounded confidence in his species, believing every man a gentleman who seemed to be one, or was by others esteemed as such, and, in transactions with them, considered their "word as good as their bond." From which, as soon as the old and well-tried associations of his native State were dissolved, he suffered many pecuniary losses. He was passionate, but not revengeful; gay and animated, but subject to occasional reactions, when he became much depressed. He was a high-toned, honorable gentleman, very neat and exact in his personal appearance, but entirely free from pretension.