In truth, Franconia, compelled to marry in deference to fortune, finds she is ensnared into misfortunes. M'Carstrow (Colonel by courtesy) had fifteen hundred dollars, cash down, to pay for Clotilda: this sad grievance excites his feelings, inasmuch as it was all owing to his wife's whims, and the poverty of her relations. The verdict of the jury, recently rendered, was to his mind a strictly correct one; but he cannot forget the insane manner in which the responsibility was fastened upon him, and the hard cash-which might have made two handsome stakes on the turf-drawn from his pocket. His wife's poverty-stricken relations he now detests, and can tolerate them best when farthest away from him. But Franconia does not forget that he is her husband; no, night after night she sits at the window until midnight, waiting his return. Feeble and weary with anxiety, she will despatch a negro on a hopeless errand of search; he, true to his charge, returns with the confidential intelligence of finding Mas'r in a place less reputable than it is proper to mention. Such is our southern society,--very hospitable in language, chivalrous in memory,--base in morals! Some- times the gallant colonel deems it necessary to remain until daylight, lest, in returning by night, the pavement may annoy his understanding. Of this, however, he felt the world knew but little. Now and then, merely to keep up the luxury of southern life, the colonel finds it gratifying to his feelings, on returning home at night, to order a bed to be made for him in one of the yard-houses, in such manner as to give the deepest pain to his Franconia. Coarse and dissolute, indifference follows, cold and cutting; she finds herself a mere instrument of baser purpose in the hands of one she knows only as a ruffian-she loathes! Thus driven under the burden of trouble, she begins to express her unhappiness, to remonstrate against his associations, to plead with him against his course of life. He jeers at this, scouts such prudery, proclaims it far beneath the dignity of his standing as a southern gentleman. The generous woman could have endured his dissipation-she might have tolerated his licentiousness, but his arbitrary and very uncalled-for remarks upon the misfortunes of her family are more than she can bear. She has tried to respect him-love him she cannot-and yet her sensitive nature recoils at the thought of being attached to one whose feelings and associations are so at variance with her own. Her impulsive spirit quails under the bitterness of her lot; she sees the dreary waste of trouble before her only to envy the happiness of those days of rural life spent on the old plantation. That she should become fretful and unhappy is a natural consequence.