"Who is worse than a slave!" sighs the rejected man, getting up and looking out of his window into the dreary recesses of the narrow lane. "If it be not a ruined planter I mistake the policy by which we govern our institution! As the slave is born a subject being, so is the planter a dependent being. We planters live in disappointment, in fear, in unhappy uncertainty; and yet we make no preparations for the result. Nay, we even content ourselves with pleasantly contemplating what may come through the eventful issue of political discord; and when it comes in earnest, we find ourselves the most hapless of unfortunates. For myself, bereft of all I had once,--even friends, I am but a forlorn object in the scale of weak mankind! No man will trust me with his confidence,--scarce one knows me but to harass me; I can give them no more, and yet I am suspected of having more. It is so, and ever will be so. Such are the phases of man's downfall, that few follow them to the facts, while rumour rules supreme over misfortune. There may be a fountain of human pain concealed beneath it; but few extend the hand to stay its quickening. Nay, when all is gone, mammon cries, more! until body and soul are crushed beneath the "more" of relentless self. "Few know the intricacies of our system; perhaps 'twere well, lest our souls should not be safe within us. But, ah! my conscience chides me here. And betwixt those feelings which once saw all things right, but now through necessity beholds their grossest wrongs, comes the pain of self-condemnation. It is a condemnation haunting me unto death. Had I been ignorant of Clotilda's history, the fiendish deed of those who wronged her in her childhood had not now hung like a loathsome pestilence around my very garments. That which the heart rebukes cannot be concealed; but we must be obedient to the will that directs all things;--and if it be that we remain blind in despotism until misfortune opens our eyes, let the cause of the calamity be charged to those it belongs to," he concludes; and then, after a few minutes' silence, he lights his taper, and sets it upon the table. His care-worn countenance pales with melancholy; his hair has whitened with tribulation; his demeanour denotes a man of tender sensibility fast sinking into a physical wreck. A well-soiled book lies on the table, beside which he takes his seat; he turns its pages over and over carelessly, as if it were an indifferent amusement to wile away the time. "They cannot enslave affection, nor can they confine it within prison walls," he mutters. He has proof in the faithfulness of Daddy, his old slave. And as he contemplates, the words "she will be more than welcome to-night," escape his lips. Simultaneously a gentle tapping is heard at the door. Slowly it opens, and the figure of an old negro, bearing a basket on his arm, enters. He is followed by the slender and graceful form of Franconia, who approaches her uncle, hand extended, salutes him with