In a large and comfortable room six persons, two women and four men, were seated at one of those copious breakfasts which are never seen to such perfection as in America. Upon benches round the room sat about twenty persons in a humbler station in life, amongst others two coloured young women, who were eating from bowls and plates placed on their knees. Those at the table were the members of the family--father, mother, daughter, and three sons. Those around were the servants. Joshua Dickson, the head of the family, was in reality a man of fifty-five, not, however, looking more than forty. He was a man of rude manners, but frank, honest expression. He was six feet high, as powerful as Hercules, a true type of those hardy pioneers who opened up the forests of the New World, drove back the Indians, and founded stations in the desert, which in time became rich and flourishing towns. His sons were named Harry, Sam, and Jack, aged respectively thirty, twenty-eight, and twenty-six. They were all three as tall as their father, and about as Herculean--true Americans, with no thought of the past, only looking to the future. Susan Dickson, the mother of this trio of giants, was a woman of about fifty--small, elegant, but extremely active, with delicate features and a pre-possessing physiognomy. She looked much younger than she really was--thanks to her really admirable complexion and the singular brightness of her eyes. She must have been rarely beautiful in her youth. Diana, the child of her old age, as she loved to call her, was scarcely sixteen, was the idol of the family, the guardian angel of the fireside; her father and brothers actually worshipped her. It was something wonderful to see their rude natures bending like reeds before the slightest wish of this delicate child, and obeying her most fantastic orders without a murmur. Diana was a charming brunette, with blue and dreamy eyes, slight and flexible form; she was pale; a look of profound melancholy was to be remarked on her countenance, giving to her physiognomy that angelic expression rarely found except in the Madonnas of Titien. This sadness, which all the family saw with sorrow, had only been in existence a few days. When questioned on the subject, even by her mother, she had no answer to give. "It is nothing at all," she said, "only a slight feeling of sickness, which will soon pass away." Hearing this, all had ceased to question her, though all felt uneasy, and slightly annoyed at her reticence. Still, as she was the spoiled child of the family, no one had the heart to blame her or pester her with questions. They had seduced her to govern them unquestioned that it appeared hard now to want to curb her will.