that his kind father had sent him to pay all his debts and immediately return home. Tears of gratitude streamed down his face, and he determined not to lose a moment in obeying to the letter his gentle father's instructions. So with rejuvenated spirits he ran to the bank, had his draft cashed, and went to the livery stables and paid his debts for horses and carriages; went to the restaurants and paid for his numerous recherche dinners, suppers, and breakfasts, and costly wines; went to the jewellers and landlords, and friends' houses who had advanced him money, and cancelled every cent that he had so foolishly involved his credit in. He then purchased a substantial cowskin and returned to the hotel, packed up all his trunks, and books, and presents for the family at home; sent all his baggage down to the ship where he had engaged his passage to Charleston, and finally he forwarded a note to the tailor who had so often insulted him, demanding his presence immediately with his bill. The knight of the goose and shears, perfectly delighted at the prospect of recovering a debt he had regarded so hopeless, hurried to the hotel, and then up the stairs to No. 17. He was received arrogantly by the proud young Southerner, who paid him every cent his bill called for, and stepping to the door he locked it on the inside, and, drawing out his cowskin, he inflicted on the wondering tailor a chastisement that proved, no doubt, a life-long alterative to his bilious system. Feeling very satisfied with giving the man of stitches a practical illustration of righteous retribution, he said: "Now, sir, remember never again to insult a gentleman's son, in a land of strangers, as you have done me; remember that Southern gentlemen honestly pay their debts." Edward then locked his door and put the key in his pocket, leaving his prisoner inside; and now rushing to the ship, we hear no more of him till he lands at his father's door in Carolina. The poor afflicted father, who had shed so many tears over his son's expulsion from college, and his dissipated habits, forgot all his griefs in the joy of beholding him once more; and now engaged one of the first lawyers to take him into his office to study law, who declared that his talents were so commanding, that he could with application become one of the most prominent men in the whole State. It is hard, however, suddenly to reform a young man who has quaffed so deeply the cup of pleasure. In a few months, Edward fell desperately in love with a beautiful girl who seemed to admire him greatly; but when he addressed her, she declared, with tears in her eyes, that she was already engaged to be married. He immediately sought her lover, and challenged him to fight a duel with small-swords, to determine who should carry off the coveted prize. Whether the fight did actually take place, tradition does not inform us; certain it is, however, that Edward Wyndham married the lady. A few months after his marriage, his fond father determined to buy him a plantation, and settle him down to the cares of domestic life, as a means of saving him from further dissipation. So hearing that a planter near Coosahatchie or Pocotalago, had a very valuable place for sale, he forthwith bought it, with the negroes, for a hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Old Mr. and Mrs. M'Eiroy, Edward's step-mother's parents, were enraged to the last degree when they heard of the purchase; and forthwith visited their daughter, to know how she was so daft, as to sit still and let her husband act with such generous fool-hardiness towards his dissipated son? And, indeed, these crafty old people persuaded Mr. Wyndham, that if he did not pay for the place for two years, Edward's wife's father would liquidate at least half of the debt. Ile listened to this counsel, and was ruined; for afterwards he made no crops; negroes, who at one time commanded a thousand dollars apiece, were not now worth three hundred. Edward's wife died in giving birth to a still-born daughter, and then her father died, without a will, and all his immense property was claimed by his brothers; and the poor, distracted Mr. Wyndham could not sell the land he had bought, and the sheriff was sent down to seize his property, and he was utterly hopeless. But at this particular moment, a stern, rich old millionaire, who belonged to the same church with him, stepped forward and paid the debt, giving Mr. Wyndham his own time to repay it. And now commenced a system of economy that had never before intruded into Mr. Wyndham's affluent mansion, for he was determined to pay his friend for the kind loan, even if he had to go to the plow himself. Wine was the first luxury driven from a table, that in all his life had never been set without it; then every article of food, that the plantation did not yield, was excluded from his larder. His cellars, filled with the choicest wines, were yielded to his rich neighbors. His superior old Holland gin, and Jamaica rum, shared the same fate; together with all the great hogsheads of whiskey and tobacco, that had been purchased for his negroes. His West India candied fruits, and every such fanciful luxury, were all discarded; and his first children, Edward, Halcombe, Britannia, and Musidora, who had property independent of their father, through their dead mother, nobly refused to appropriate a cent of their private income, but gave it all up to the payment of the debt, and even allowed their father to sell a part of their principal. Mr. Wyndham's beautiful doll-wife now wilted down. into a mere imbecile; and spent all her time reviling Edward as the sole cause of his father's ruin; indeed, she so influenced Musidora, that the child would indignantly spurn every offer of kindness from her own brother Edward, declaring how she hated him for making her papa cry so much; and then the irritable, despairing young man, would slap her little face, and this created such an enmity in that child's breast, that she never entirely recovered from it. Her sister, Britannia, on the contrary, was always in Edward's lap, soothing the torments of his conscience; for although he could not blame himself that his father chose to buy him a plantation, and was ruined by the speculation, still his follies had helped to break down the genial heart of that incomparably loved parent, and he could not forgive himself. He gave his sister Britannia his dead wife's costly casket of jewels, and all her expensive wardrobe, while poor little Musidora did not receive a single present; and he was always telling her how very much smarter, handsomer, and better-behaved her sister Britannia was than herself. Everybody but the humbled child's father reiterated the fact; so that Musidora was driven out of the house by her sensitiveness to these odious comparisons; and as her step-mother, who had now three sons of her own, never troubled herself as to Musidora's whereabouts, she would take the little negroes, and wander through the woods all day, collecting whortleberries, chinquapins, walnuts, and hickory nuts. At other times she would go to the grave-yard, and kneel down on the ground where her own mother had been buried, and talk to her as if she were visibly present; and, indeed, throughout life she never was divested of the impression that her mother's spirit always held communion with her own, for those loving eyes were daguerreotyped on her heart.* Sometimes she would jump on her beautiful saddlehorse, and ride for hours through the deep forests surrounding her father's extensive domain; and then again she would spring into a tiny canoe, and paddle round to the islands belonging to Mr. Wyndham's peninsular home, where the rattlesnake,† alligator, eagle, and "Mark her majestic fabric; she's a temple Nor is the pile unworthy of the god." "There is no reptile merits more particular notice than the rattlesnake, which is one of the most formidable living crea tures in the universe. Providence has kindly furnished him with a tail which makes a rattling noise, and no doubt was intended to warn every creature of the danger of approaching nigh him. He indeed possesses that noble fortitude which is harmless, except when provoked or molested. He is never the aggressor, and seems averse from making use of the weapons of destruction. He flies from man; but when pursued, and he cannot escape, he instantly gathers into a coil, and prepares for |