“What a fatality! All these fine boys to pass away in early manhood! And the son of Cuthbert, the second brother, you say, inherits the manor. I remember Cuthbert well. He was intended for the church. They called him Cuddie. Now, tell me how you came to meet Palma. She was the daughter of the youngest brother, James, you say.” “Yes; and after the death of her parents she was adopted by Judge and Mrs. Barrn, who were my guardians. I met Palma in their house when I first went there to live, and so knew her from her infancy up. I won her pure affection then, and never afterward lost it, thank Heaven.” “An excellent knowledge and a blessed beginning. Now, tell me how it was you lost your Mississippi plantation.” “I have not lost it. It is legally mine, but of no more use to me than would be so many acres of waste land in the Sahara. The land is, indeed, a desert, and the buildings a mass of charred ruins.” “Through the war?” “Yes, of course. Mansion house, stables, barns, mills, negroes’ quarters fired and burned to the ground; stock all driven off; negroes conscripted. The place is a ruin and a wilderness; it would take many thousand dollars to reclaim it.” The old man sighed, but made no reply. Then Stuart told him frankly of the desperate straits to which he had been reduced at the time when his uncle’s letter came to him so opportunely. Mr. Cleve was shocked. “If I had known! If I had only known!” he said. But in all his narrative Stuart never mentioned the name or existence of either Lamia Leegh or Gentleman Geff. It was bad enough, he thought, to trouble the old gentleman’s calm spirit with the tale of want; but it would have been far worse to have darkened and depressed it with the story of falsehood and treachery. The early dinner bell brought the family together, and around the table were only happy faces. All the painful past was for the time forgotten. The afternoon was beautiful. The large old sleigh was brushed out, lined with buffalo skins and blankets, and brought around to the front door by two swift horses. And the four—Mr. Cleve, Mrs. Pole, Stuart and Palma—took a ride; the first pair seated on the back seat, the second on the front seat, and Josias, the coachman, on the box. They took the road that skirted the base of the mountains, on the inside, and went in a circle around the plantation. On this road, under the shelter of the mountains, stood the negroes’ quarters—log huts, large and small, from one room to two, three or even four, according to the necessities of the occupants. The men and boys were all away at such farm work as the season permitted, and the women were engaged in washing, ironing, cooking, or carding and spinning wool. Their open doors showed their occupations, and showed also the bright pine wood fires that so warmed their huts as to permit these open doors. The sleigh passed too swiftly for the party in it to return half the nods and smiles with which their passage was greeted.