Bay's End was a beautiful village, situated on rising ground, that overlooked distant bayous, lagoons, lakes and sluggish streams, where the alligator reveled in his glory. The colonel had selected the village, on account of its healthy location, for his country residence. He had here a spacious mansion, such as only a Southerner knows how to construct; and here, every Autumn, he came with his beautiful Spanish wife. But she had died years before, and the colonel's family consisted of only one daughter, now a young lady. At the end of three months, after Abner's arrival at Bay's End, Colonel Mortimer appeared one morning at his cell door. "Colonel," he said, "I shall be compelled to remove you from here. More prisoners are coming, and there is not room for all in this little jug." "I hope, sir, that you will give me accommodations as good as I have at present," replied Abner. "I shall be compelled to take you to my own house, every other place being occupied," said the fat, old colonel, with a merry twinkle in his black eyes. "Surely, if I fare as well as my jailer, I can not complain," said Abner. He followed Colonel Mortimer from the prison, and stood still for a moment, looking about him in the glorious sunshine, up and down the shaded street, and at the beautiful orange groves in the distance. Never had nature seemed so beautiful to him before. For weeks at a time he had not seen the light of the sun, except through grates, for the rays that had struggled into his dungeon were shorn of their splendor. Now all the beauty of a tropical clime burst on him at once--the fields of cotton, the cloudless sky and the sweet scent of flowers, that continually bloom in this land of endless Summer. "Oh, beautiful, beautiful!" murmured the prisoner, a moisture gathering in his eyes. "What is beautiful?" asked the colonel, who was by his side; two soldiers walking in the rear. "This world, which God has given us," was the reply. "Yes, it is a beautiful world," said the rebel. "But we know not how to appreciate it, until we have been for a while deprived of the sight of its beauties," answered Abner. "Yonder is my home," said the Confederate, pointing to a large granite building. "It is not, perhaps, in strict accordance with military discipline, to keep a prisoner in one's own house, but I have no other place for you." "I wish your home was farther away," said Abner. "Why, sir?" "That I might longer enjoy the free air and sunshine." The tender-hearted old colonel wiped his face vigorously with his red bandana, and the rest of the journey was made in silence. On entering the house, the colonel took his prisoner into a reception room, opening from the hall, to wait until his prison room could be made ready. "You will be granted some privileges here, that you have not had before," said the colonel. "You will be permitted to walk in the grounds once in every two or three days for an hour or so."