No wonder those fine strong eyes danced with anticipation as he shook hands right and left. He was, up to this time, a frank, thoughtless, joyous, extravagant fellow—selfish because he knew nothing of sorrow, and wasteful because he knew nothing of want. Affluent in youth, health, and love—affluent in wealth, honour, and homage—he seemed to consider gold valueless as dust, and deference only his just due. He “the heir of all the ages” past of thought and toil, had entered upon his intellectual inheritance with great _éclat_; but as yet not one mite had he added to the store; not one thought had he bestowed upon the great subjects that now engross all earnest minds. Too full of youthful fire, vitality, love, hope, and joy, for any grave thought or feeling to find room in his brain or heart, was the planter’s son. How, indeed, could earnest thought find entrance through such a crowd of noisy joys to his heart? He stood upon the threshold of the past, indeed, and his face was set forward towards the future; but not one onward step had he taken. Why should he trouble himself? The bounteous future was advancing to him, smiling, and laden with all the riches of life and time. But he stood, receiving the adieus of his young friends, and dealing out wholesale and retail invitations for all and each to come and visit him, for an indefinite length of time, or until they were tired. At last they were all gone, except Lauderdale, his chum, who was passing some days with him, as his guest, at the Minerva House. “You are an enviable dog, Sutherland,” exclaimed the latter, clapping him sharply upon the shoulder. “You are a deuced enviable villain! By my soul, it is enough to make a poor man like me dissatisfied with his lot, or the present arrangements of society, which amounts to precisely the same thing, I suppose. Deuce take me, if it is not enough to make me turn Agrarian, Chartist, Radical, or whatever may be the new name for the old discontent! Just contrast our positions! Here are you, at one-and-twenty years of age, entirely free from all toil and care for the whole remainder of your life. You will now return to a sumptuous southern home, on a magnificent estate, where troops of friends wait to welcome you, and troops of slaves attend to serve you, and where your bride, the very pearl of beauty, dreams of and languishes for your presence; and, above all—yes, I speak reflectingly, above _all_—more than sumptuous home, and troops of friends, and trains of servants, and blushing bride—where, lying perdue at your service, is a plenty of the root of all evil— ‘Gold to save—gold to lend— Gold to give—gold to spend.’