Colonel Waring had his enemies. What man has not? And even among those who at times sat at his board, and slept under his roof, it was said that "justice should go before generosity;" and that Colonel Waring, by his reckless charities and lavish hospitality, wronged both his creditors and his heir. Others whispered that he plunged into the excitements of company for the purpose of drowning thought or conscience; and if a stranger came into the neighborhood, and found himself, as he would be not unlikely to do, the guest of Colonel Waring, he would be told by some fellow-visitor that the late Mrs. Waring, the wife of the colonel, had died, raving mad, in a Northern lunatic asylum. And, among the women, it was whispered that in dying she had deeply cursed the Mestizza and her boy. However that might be, it is certain that Phædra had always manifested the most sincere attachment to the lady's son; and from the time that Oswald was left an orphan, at the age of six months, to the time of her death, no one could be a more devoted nurse or a greater child-spoiler than she was to him. Phædra's nature was despotic, and every one on the plantation had to yield to Master Oswald, or they would find rations shortened, holidays refused, work increased, clothing neglected, and be punished in numerous indirect ways, not by their most indulgent of masters, but by the influence of the Mestizza. Even her own son was scarcely an exception to the universal homage she exacted for Oswald. He had two claims upon her--in the first place, in her eyes he was the young master, the heir-apparent, the Crown Prince--and then he had "no mother." And the boy on his side repaid his nurse's devotion by the most sincere affection, both for her and for his foster brother, Valentine. Oswald "took after" his father, both in the Saxon fairness of his fresh complexion, flaxen hair, and lively blue eyes, and in the hearty benevolence and careless gayety of his disposition. Like his father, also, he lacked self-esteem, and the dignity of character that it gives. Nay, he had not half so much of that quality as had the son of the Mestizza, whose overweening pride won for him the name of "Little Prince." Valentine was an exquisitely beautiful boy; he was like his Mestizza mother, in the clear, dark-brown skin, and regular aquiline features; but, instead of her straight black locks, he had soft, shining, bluish-black hair, that fell in numerous spiral ringlets all around his neck, and when he stooped veiled his cheeks. In startling, yes, in absolutely frightful contrast to that dark skin and raven black hair and eyebrows, were his clear, light-blue, Saxon eyes! One who understands scientifically, or feels intuitively, the nature of such a fearful combination of antagonistic and never-to-be-harmonized elements of character, fated without the saving grace of God, to become the elements of insanity and crime, cannot look upon its external outward signs without shuddering.