Mr. Waring lost no time in commencing his homeward journey, and attended by his favorite, in less than a fortnight from the day of leaving New York, he reached the city near to which was his father's plantation. But there fatal news met him. He was too late. The virulent fever of that latitude had quickly done its work; and Colonel Waring's funeral had taken place the week previous. As this result had been dreaded by Oswald, the shock of hearing of it lost half its force. There was nothing to do but to hasten to the plantation, to examine into the confused condition of affairs there. Leaving a note for Mr. Pettigrew to meet him there the next day, Oswald took a carriage, and, with Valentine by his side, drove rapidly out to the plantation. They were met by Phædra, who had been tacitly left in sole charge of the house, and who saluted her young master with grave respect, and greeted her long absent son with a silent pressure of the hand, deferring all expression of interest in or affection for Valentine, until they should be alone together. The next morning Mr. Pettigrew arrived, and the examination of the condition of the estate of the deceased began. The lawyer expressed his opinion that there was no will of his late client in existence; and, further, that none had ever been made by him. Colonel Waring had never spoken to him, as his legal adviser, upon the subject, as he would have been likely to have done had he contemplated making one. Colonel Waring was a hale, sanguine man, in the prime of life, and not likely to entertain the thought of the contingency of his own death. And the fever that terminated his existence had been too sudden in its attack and delirium--insensibility and death had followed with too fatal rapidity, to admit of such a possibility as his executing his will. However, a search for a possible one was instituted; the library, secretaries, bureau, strong boxes--in fact, the whole house was ransacked for a will, or some memento of one; but neither will, nor sign of will, could be discovered. Perhaps the person most deeply interested in the search was Phædra. As soon as her quick intelligence discovered that there was a doubt relative to the existence of a will, her interest became intense. When coming into the house to attend her young master or the lawyer, she paused, loitered near them; and, whenever she was allowed to do so, she assisted in the search with a zeal not equaled by either of the others. And when at last this search was abandoned as fruitless, she looked so unutterably wretched, as she hurried from the room, that both gentlemen gazed after her in astonishment. "Why, what is the matter with Phædra?" inquired Mr. Waring, looking interrogatively at the lawyer. "She is disappointed, most probably." "But in what respect? I do not understand." "She was a favorite slave, was she not?"