I sat down and opened them. Two were from Richards, the earliest in date, inviting me to go and stay with him again. The more recent one renewed the invitation, and expressed the writer's surprise at my having become on a sudden so domestic a character. In a postscript he added, as a sort of inducement to me to visit him, that he was daily expecting a friend of his wife's, the beautiful Emily Warren. Not a syllable, however, about the eight thousand dollars, which surprised me not a little; for Richards was by no means a man to remain silent on a subject affecting his worldly interest, and I fully expected he would have felt and expressed some pique or resentment at my sudden withdrawal of my funds. But, on the contrary, the letter I had given to Menou, in which I requested Richards to pay over the money in question to the Creole, was not even alluded to. "There are matters in these letters," said I to young Menou, "which oblige me to return immediately to your father's house." "Indeed!" cried the young man, much astonished. "Yes," replied I. "I hear a steamboat coming down the river--I will be off at once." He looked at me in great surprise; Sybille shook her head. But my character is so impatient and impetuous, that when I have resolved on any thing, I can never bear to defer its execution a moment. Besides, there was really nothing to detain me at my plantation. The arrangements and improvements that I had reckoned on finding only half effected were complete; and every moment that now elapsed before I could welcome Louise as mistress of my house and heart, seemed to me worse than wasted. I hurried down to the river and hailed the steamer. It was the same that had brought me home two months previously. "Mr Howard," said the captain joyously, as I stepped on board the vessel, "I am right glad to see you on my deck again. Your plantation looks quite another thing. You are really a worker of wonders." I hardly knew how to accept this undeserved praise. One of the best points in our American character is the universal respect paid to industry and intellect. The wealthy idler who carries thousands in his pocket-book, may, amongst us, look in vain for the respect and flattery which a tithe of his riches would procure him in many other countries; while the less fortunate man, who makes his way and earns his living by hand and head work, may always reckon on the consideration of his fellow-citizens. On my return to Louisiana I had been thought nothing of. I was a drone in the hive--with money, but without skill or perseverance. My overseer was more looked up to than myself; but the recent change in the state of my plantation, attributed, however wrongly, to my presence, had caused a revolution in people's ideas; and I was now met on all sides with open hands and smiling countenances. The change, I must confess, was a gratifying one for me.