'You _do_ look ill, Mr. Preston,' she said, seating herself beside him. 'You must stay a while with us, and rest.' 'I would be glad to stay here, madam--anywhere away from home.' 'The care of two plantations, such as yours, must be a burden!' 'It is not that, madam; Joe relieves me entirely from oversight of one of them. My difficulty is at home--mine is not what yours is.' Kate's sympathizing words soon drew him out (she has a way of winning the confidence of people, and is the depositary of more family secrets than any other woman in the State); and he told us what his home had become since his union with the governess. Within two months after the marriage her real character began to display itself, and she soon developed into a genuine Xantippe. Getting control of Mulock, who had been made overseer, she had the negroes dreadfully whipped and overworked; she treated young master Joe so badly that the lad rebelled, and in his father's absence ran away to his uncle at Mobile; and locking Selma up in a dark room without food, or beating her till her back was actually discolored, she made the child's home intolerable to her. After master Joe went away, no one dared complain; and shut up in his library, brooding over his still fresh grief for the death of his wife, Preston knew nothing of the real state of affairs till more than a year had elapsed. Then one day he found Selma in tears. He questioned her, and learned the whole. A scene followed, in which Mrs. Preston asserted her rights as mistress of the plantation, and defied him. She had run into all sorts of extravagance, the yearly bills which had come in a short time previous were appallingly large, but to secure peace, Preston consented to buy and furnish a winter residence at Newbern. To that she had removed, but with the coming spring she would return to the plantation, and in the mean time Selma must be provided with another home. 'Feel no anxiety about her, sir,' said Kate, as he concluded; 'if Alice Gray will not take her, we will.' 'I thank you, madam; I cannot thank you enough for saying that,' replied Preston, his eyes filling with tears. I wrote at once to David, and soon received a letter from Alice consenting to take charge of the little girl. Thanksgiving, at which time Kate made annual visits to her early home, was approaching, and it was decided that Selma should accompany her to Boston. This being arranged, Preston, at the end of a fortnight, took leave of us, and returned to the South. The parting between the father and the child gave evidence of what they were to each other. Preston wept like a woman; but as Kate brushed back the brown curls from the broad forehead of little Selly, she raised her eyes to my wife's face, and while her thin nostrils dilated, and her sensitive chin slightly quivered, said; 'I must not cry for poor papa's sake--it is so _very_ hard for him to go home alone; and he will miss his little girl _so_ much.'