perhaps to be buried n the same forlorn grave, the very next day. All these things reflected their results through the morbidity of Mr. M'Fadden's mind; but his last observation, showing how slender is the cord between life and death, proved what was uppermost in his mind. "You'll allow I'm an honest man? I have great faith in your opinion, Doctor! And if I have been rather go-ahead with my niggers, my virtue in business matters can't be sprung," he mutters. The physician endeavours to calm his anxiety, by telling him he is a perfect model of goodness,--a just, honest, fearless, and enterprising planter; and that these attributes of our better nature constitute such a balance in the scale as will give any gentleman slaveholder very large claims to that spiritual proficiency necessary for the world to come. Mr. M'Fadden acquiesces in the correctness of this remark, but desires to inform the practitioner what a sad loss he has met with. He is sure the gentleman will scarcely believe his word when he tells him what it is. "I saw how ye felt downright affected when that nigger o' mine prayed with so much that seemed like honesty and christianity, last night," he says. "Yes," interrupts the man of medicine, "he was a wonderful nigger that. I never heard such natural eloquence nor such pathos; he is a wonder among niggers, he is! Extraordinary fellow for one raised up on a plantation. Pity, almost, that such a clergyman should be a slave." "You don't say so, Doctor, do you? Well! I've lost him just when I wanted him most." "He is not dead?" enquires the physician, suddenly interrupting. He had seen Mr. M'Fadden's courage fail at the approach of death, and again recover quickly when the distance widened between that monitor and himself, and could not suppress the smile stealing over his countenance. "Dead! no indeed. Worse-he has run away!" Mr. M'Fadden quickly retorted, clenching his right hand, and scowling. In another minute he turns back the sheets, and, with returned strength, makes a successful attempt to sit up in bed. "I don't know whether I'm better or worse; but I think it would be all right if I warn't worried so much about the loss of that preacher. I paid a tremendous sum for him. And the worst of it is, my cousin deacon Stoner, of a down-east church, holds a mortgage on my nigger stock, and he may feel streaked when he hears of the loss;" Mr. M'Fadden concludes, holding his side to the physician, who commences examining the wound, which the enfeebled man says is very sore and must be dressed cautiously, so that he may be enabled to get out and see to his property. To the great surprise of all, the wound turns out to be merely a slight cut, with no appearance of inflammation, and every prospect of being cured through a further application of a very small bit of dressing plaster.