I gave the pledge required, and I was immediately released from the grasp of the Commonwealth; her chivalric man of law professing himself satisfied of my innocence, complimenting me on being a gentleman, and wishing me good night with a profound and dignified bow. I was in no humor to moralize on this singular scene; yet I could not forbear to smile at this strangest of all paradoxes--that he who was prepared to enforce the duelling law, should be so far elevated above its vulgar penalty, that he could at pleasure either neutralize its severity, or trample on its express ordinances, lending a credulous heart to the dreamy nonsense of chivalry, and a deaf ear to the trumpet-tongued voice of _Be it enacted_. Such is public opinion, and such are laws; when in conflict, a Mezentian union--when acting in harmony, the firmest and most durable base for the fabric of government. Pursuing my course, I fortunately encountered Scipio, who was going to the college with his accustomed budget of letters, and dismounting him, with orders to go and attend the sick couch of Arthur, I took his horse, and rode rapidly on to Chalgrave. The night wore sullenly and gloomily away, and ere morning, one of those fast, yet light snow-storms, which rush on with a momentary though softened fierceness, had thrown a spotless mantle around the trees, the hills and plains of Virginia. I passed two or three of our negroes on the skirts of the plantation, standing with slouched hats and folded arms, like so many statues of ebony on a marble floor. 'Tis then that melancholy spreads its deepest gloom over a Virginian farm--a solitude fearful, still, and echoless--while all nature bows to its stern influence. The cattle are gathered to the _farm-pen_, to ruminate over a rasping _shuck_, or a marrowless corn-stalk. From a pool in the stable yard, a dense and curling vapor overshadows a motley group of ducks and geese, who are quarrelling and floundering in undisputed possession of their odorous empire; while the lengthened face of the prisoned plough-horse takes a more pallid hue from the sympathy of melancholy, and is protruded on the scene like that eternal spectre of death which is ever flitting athwart the path of life. Within the house there is a confused hurrying to and fro of menials in search of wood, carpets, and rugs, while the mistress fairly frets herself into philosophy amid the snow, mud, and her own contradictory orders. A glance from the window will disclose a crowd of negroes collected around the wood-yard, waiting to carry the logs cut by one, who with a heavy whirl of his ponderous axe, and a loud moan, scatters his wounded chips at every stroke. He is then on the crest of the highest wave of vanity, and will ever and anon rest his axe to tell of the broad _clearings_ which have opened beneath his giant arm. I looked on this quiet and familiar scene with an aching eye and a throbbing