"Gerald Leslie's daughter here!" exclaimed Augustus. "This is too much. This is what her father exposes us to in not teaching this girl her real position." "What is to be done?" asked Adelaide, turning pale. "Can you ask?" replied her brother. "Surely there is but one course. I will ask Myra here," he added, pointing to the young quadroon. "Tell me, girl, what do you think of this young person?" "Why, massa, I--I--thought in spite of the whiteness of her skin, she must be--" "Of the same rank as yourself; is it not so?" "Yes, massa." "Very well, then; do you think it possible that your mistress could receive her as a visitor--as an equal?" "Oh, no, massa!" exclaimed the girl. "That is enough. You can let her know this." Myra courtesied, and was about to leave the room, when Gilbert Margrave arrested her by an imperious motion of his hand. "Stay!" he exclaimed. "Pardon me, Mr. Horton, if I presume to say that this must not be. I had the honor of meeting Miss Leslie one evening at the house of your aunt. Permit me, therefore, to spare her an insult which I should feel myself a dastard in tolerating. Allow me to carry your answer to Miss Leslie?" "You, sir!" exclaimed Augustus Horton. "Oh, pardon me, Mr. Horton, if I appear to make a bad return for the kind welcome you were so ready to offer to a stranger; but remember that the customs and prejudices of the South are new to me, and forgive me if I say that the conduct which on your part would only be natural, would become on mine an abominable cowardice!" "Sir!" cried the indignant Augustus. Before he could say more, Gilbert Margrave had bowed deferentially to the ladies and to the angry planter himself. "Oh, it is too clear--he loves her!" exclaimed Adelaide, when they were alone. "And even if he does," said her aunt, quietly; "what difference can it possibly make to Miss Adelaide Horton that is--Mrs. Mortimer Percy that is to be?" Crimson mounted to Adelaide's face at this remark. She made no answer, but with an angry look at her aunt, hurried from the room. This display of emotion had not escaped the penetrating eye of her brother. "What is the meaning of this, my dear aunt?" he asked. "I very much fear, Augustus, that your sister has no great inclination to marry her cousin, Mortimer Percy." "And the cause of this disinclination is some foolish preference for the insolent European who has just left us?" "Unhappily, yes." "This is too humiliating," exclaimed Augustus, walking rapidly up and down the apartment; "my sister degrades herself by evincing a marked predilection for a man who is indifferent to her, and the object of her admiration does her the honor to prefer a--slave!" CHAPTER VIII. TOBY TELLS THE STORY OF THE MURDERED FRANCILIA. On an elevated terrace, fifty feet above the margin of a lake, was situated the summer pavilion occupied by the once wealthy planter, Gerald Leslie.