“Yes, sir, and the baggage and horses are ready,” was the reply of a stalwart youth, whose dress betokened a condition removed from that of an ordinary menial, and partaking rather of that of a familiar, though humble companion. “I think we can give them the slip, sir—Lord! how I wish for a crack at these fellows! and once with Marion, we’ll not long want an opportunity.” “Be in waiting for me at midnight, then,” said the first speaker; and, as Macdonald retired, he threw himself back again in his chair, and fixing his eyes on the floor, resigned himself to the abstraction out of which he had been roused. Howard Preston, the hero of our story, had just returned from Europe, where he had been fulfilling the injunctions of his father’s will, by a course of study and travel until his twenty-fourth year. The first great sorrow of his life had been his parting, at sixteen, with the only child of his guardian, Kate Mowbray, then a lovely little girl, who for years had been his pet and playmate. Many were the tears she also shed at the separation, and faithfully did she promise not to forget her boy lover. Such childish preferences usually end with youth; but it was not so in the present instance. With every letter from abroad came a gift for Kate, which she requited with some trifle worked by her own hands. But as years elapsed, and Kate approached womanhood, these presents were no longer returned, and Preston, piqued at what he thought neglect, gradually came to confine himself, in his letters home, to a cold inquiry after her health, instead of devoting, as heretofore, two-thirds of the epistle to her. Yet he never thought of America without also thinking of Kate; and when he landed at Charleston, a month before our tale begins, he was wondering into what kind of a woman she had grown up.