"Will you take a drink?--Good old rye--capital stuff--twenty year old, that. Though, may be, you'd like a julep. But I don't go in for juleps--the mint's over-heating, 'specially when one's dined." "I thought you Virginian gentlemen took all your liquor before dinner," I answered, helping myself to a small portion of the whisky, which was, indeed, excellent. "Some do, and some don't," he said, rather shily. "For my own part, I only take a glass or two of apple-jack before dinner; but I always have my glass of whisky-and-water after;" and, he added, about a spoonful of water to the tumblerful of spirits. "You see I'm a great sufferer from the dispepsy--indeed, most of us are about here." I thought it was no wonder, if they all ate as I had seen the people at that table. I literally saw one man pile up his plate with the following articles, in the order I put them down:--About a pound of boiled pork; the same quantity of cabbage; two large spoonfuls of a sort of French beans; a whole plateful of raw, undressed cucumber, cut in slices; a quantity of pickles, and a slice of ham. All this was consumed, I recollect, in the space of five minutes. However, my worthy host seemed to become gayer and more communicative upon the strength of his dinner; and in the course of a long chat with him in the porch, I obtained a good deal of information in regard to all the families for many miles around. He told me he had lived there for thirty years; he had built himself two houses, and knew everybody in the neighbourhood--man, woman, and child; white, black, and yellow. Amongst the rest, he had been well acquainted with Aunt Bab; and from some facts he told me, I am inclined to feel glad that I came over here--not, perhaps, to enrich myself, but to spoil a very nefarious scheme for the appropriation of her property by others. Besides much other intelligence, I learned that the spot about which was congregated most of my hitherto unknown relatives, was still at a distance of some twenty-five to thirty miles; and, consequently, as soon as the sun had declined sufficiently to throw some shade upon the road, I looked eagerly about for my friend Zed, and directed him to bring out the horses. Not a little patience is needed all over the world in the minor affairs of life. I do believe they affect us more, and more permanently, than those of greater importance. We cut the diamond with dust, which we cannot even scratch with steel; and I am confident that many a man's spirit is worn away and brought down with petty cares and small annoyances, who would have struggled manfully against great evils. The kind of servitude, too, of this country is peculiarly abundant in such trifling discomforts, proceeding from the character of the different classes of people and their relations to each other. As far as I have seen, there is no order, no system, no regularity;--a total absence of that military discipline and punctuality which makes everything roll smoothly.