The Cabin and Parlor;

OR,

SLAVES AND MASTERS

This is an annotated text of The Cabin and the Parlor, published by Charles Jacobs Peterson in Philadelphia in 1852. Original spelling, punctuation and page citations have been retained; minor typographic errors have been corrected.

This electronic edition has been prepared for the Antislavery Literature Project, Arizona State University, a public education project working in cooperation with the EServer, Iowa State University. Digitization has been supported by a grant from the Institute for Humanities Research, Arizona State University.

Editorial annotation by Joe Lockard. Digitization by Noel Borde,

Mahesh Bhutkar, Nilesh Ralbhat, and Manoj Salvi of NetConnect India. All rights reserved by the Antislavery Literature Project. Permission for non-commercial educational use is granted.

[unnumbered title page]

The Cabin and Parlor;

OR,

SLAVES AND MASTERS

By

J. Thornton Randolph

Introduction

Charles Jacobs Peterson (1819-1887), who published The Cabin and the Parlor under the pseudonym of J. Thornton Randolph, was well-known as a mid-century historical novelist and American military historian. Peterson was born in Philadelphia and made his business reputation there by publishing inexpensive unauthorized reprints of British novels and Petersons Ladies National Magazine. He was a prolific novelist whose work included The Algerine, and Other Tales (1846), Grace Dudley; or, Arnold at Saratoga (1849), The Valley Farm: The Autobiography of an Orphan (1850), Kate Aylsford: A Story of Refugees (1855), The Old Stone Mansion (1859), and The Heiress of Sweetwater (1873). Peterson published many further titles on early American military history. For further on his career, see Barrie Hayne, Standing on Neutral Ground: Charles Jacobs Peterson of Petersons, Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography (1969) 93:510-526. The Old Stone Mansion is available online at

http://www.letrs.indiana.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=wright2;idno=wright2-1880.

Peterson shared the pro-slavery disposition of the antebellum Philadelphia business community, which relied heavily on commercial trade with Southern states. This support for slavery finds expression in The Cabin and the Parlor, which was also published under the title Courtenay Hall; or, the Life and Hospitality in a Planters Family. A True Tale of Virginia Life. Petersons novel was one of a small wave of pro-slavery novels published as a response to the success of Harriet Beecher Stowes Uncle Toms Cabin.

The novel traces the lives of several black and white characters from the Courtenay plantation in Virginia, which falls upon hard times with the death of its master. Threatened with sale, two young slaves in love, Charles and Cora, run away and find their fortunes sinking rapidly in the North. Trusting old family servants, Uncle Peter and his wife Aunt Vilet, find themselves in good circumstances despite the plantations closing. The masters son, Horace, also seeks his fortune in a northern Philadelphia-like city, only to find poverty, illness and death. Peterson repeatedly elaborates the argument made by pro-slavery advocates that black slaves received far better care and treatment than the white working classes of northern cities (see chapter XV). To make this point further, he emphasizes the anti-black violence of northern cities and provides a vivid reconstruction of one of Philadelphias anti-black riots of the 1830s and early 1840s.

Back in Virginia, the deceased masters wife, his daughter Isabel, and small son Alfred experience poverty and vissisitudes, but receive support from their neighbors and ex-slaves. Isabel opens a school in order to support her family. After surviving poverty, illness, and misadventure, Isabel encounters and falls in love with handsome and wealthy Walworth, who coincidentally attended Horace on his death-bed and saved Coras life during the urban riot. The Courtenay family fortunes are restored after business mis-dealing are reversed; they take up residence on the planatation again; the fugitive Cora returns to serve her mistress; and Isabel and Walworth marry.

Joe Lockard

The Cabin and Parlor;

OR,

SLAVES AND MASTERS

By

J. Thornton Randolph

EMBELLISHED WITH MAGNIFICENT ILLUSTRATIONS.

From original design by Stephens, engraved by Beeler.

Philadelphia:

T.B.PETERSON, NO. 98 CHESNUT STREET.

Fine Edition Cloth, gilt.Price One Dollar.

[unnumbered copyright page]

____________________________

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1852, by

T. B. Peterson,

In the Clerks Office of the District Court of the United States,

in and for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

___________________________

__________________________

PHILADELPHIA:

STEREOTYPED BY GEORGE CHARLES.

PRINTED BY KING & BAIRD.

___________________________________

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PREFACE.

_____

the merit of a book like the following depends entirely on its strict adherence to truth. It must describe things as they generally exist, and not exceptional instances, otherwise it is worthless.

Now should the author of this work be asked if it is a faithful transcript of real life, he would answer that he has himself witnessed all the scenes described, or those similar. He has, moreover, personally observed the condition of the operatives, both at the North and South.

But he is not willing to rest the question on his own unsupported assertion. For the degraded condition of the free colored population in the North he appeals to every candid inhabitant of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Southern Ohio, those being the localities where the free blacks exist in greatest numbers, and where consequently the best opportunities for

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studying them occur. Thousands of persons will recognize the particular riots delineated in these pages. The black suburb still exists, so that any individual skeptical as to the fact, may visit it, and ascertain for himself that the picture is not overdrawn.

For what the author has said of the relative condition of the British operative and Southern slave, he quotes the authority of William Thomson, a Scotch weaver, who, in 1842, travelled through this country, supporting himself by manual labor. Mr. Thomson arrived here an abolitionist, but, after witnessing slavery in almost every State where it existed, and living for weeks among negroes on cotton plantations, he has asserted that he never saw one-fifth of the real suffering that he had beheld among the laboring poor of England. In addition he declares that, "the members of the same family of negroes are not so much scattered as are those of working men in Scotland, whose necessities compel them to separate at an age when the American slave is running about gathering health and strength."

The story of Horace Courtenay is no fiction. Those familiar with poverty in our Northern

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PREFACE.

cities will be able to recall numerous similar instances. In both him and Isabel the purpose of the author has been to exhibit the important fact, that many of what are popularly considered evils peculiar to slavery exist in all conditions of poverty.

The author has said nothing, in this volume, about "the compromises of the Constitution." Why? Because Washington and the other most influential framers of that instrument are known to have been God-fearing men, who must have had full assurance of right for all its provisions, or they would never have put their hands to it. It is but just to them to examine the grounds on which they acted. This has been attempted, in the present volume, though without any direct reference to them personally. If the popular mind addresses itself honestly and seriously to this question, the Constitution is in no danger; for what better could be done now for the interests of both races, if the Union had to be framed anew, than was done then? All the trouble that has arisen on this subject has sprung from a few, who virtually say to nine-tenths of their fellow citizens, "Stand aside, I am holier than thou."

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PREFACE.

The remark attributed to Uncle Peter, on refusing to be emancipated, was made to the author by one, who though formerly a slave, is now free, and who is altogether the most intelligent and energetic African he ever knew. Generally the language put into the mouth of Uncle Peter and others is drawn from memory.

The author disclaims, in advance, the idea of having written this work for mercenary considerations; as has been said of another, "to steal a part of the profits of a lady's hard-earned reputation." Such disingenuous attempts to silence reply to "Uncle Tom's Cabin," surely cannot be countenanced by Mrs. Stowe.

The book has been written in the hope that it may lead to broad and correct views on the subject of slavery. No real friend to the progress of humanity can desire to see the great cause of mankind put back by premature action; and if there is one truth more true than others, it is that social systems cannot be safely changed in a day.

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CONTENTS.

_______

PAGE

CHAPTER I.

the unbidden quest,.................................... 9

CHAPTER II.

the negro quarter,..................................... 21

CHAPTER III.

the beggar of the orphan,........................... 29

CHAPTER IV.

the fugitive slave,.................................. 40

CHAPTER V.

the household wreck,................................ 49

CHAPTER VI.

the school,........................................... 60

CHAPTER VII.

the harvest holiday,................................ 74

CHAPTER VIII.

horace at the north,.................................. 82

CHAPTER IX.

the northern slave,................................... 96

CHAPTER X.

the fugitives,........................................... 109

CHAPTER XI.

the black suburb,.................................... 120

CHAPTER XII.

rosa's wedding,....................................... 133

CHAPTER XIII.

little alfred, .......................................... 139

CHAPTER XIV.

isabel's winter,....................................... 153

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CONTENTS.

page

CHAPTER XV.

the englishman,.........................................165

CHAPTER XVI.

the suppliant........................................... 177

CHAPTER XVII.

horace again,.......................................... 190

CHAPTER XVIII.

the riot,................................................ 197

CHAPTER XIX.

sacking the suburb,................................. 207

CHAPTER XX.

cora and her child,....................................215

CHAPTER XXI.

charles in prison,...................................... 226

CHAPTER XXII.

requiescat in pace,.................................... 237

CHAPTER XXIII.

charles set free,....................................... 245

CHAPTER XXIV.

fraternal strife,....................................... 253

CHAPTER XXV.

the snow storm,....................................... 262

CHAPTER XXVI.

the letter,........................................... 274

CHAPTER XXVII.

the interview,......................................... 280

CHAPTER XXVIII.

diomed, ............................................. 288

CHAPTER XXIX.

the fugitives again,................................. 300

CHAPTER XXX.

the return,............................................. 304

CHAPTER XXXI.

the homestead again,.............................. 311

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THE CABIN AND PARLOR;

OR,

SLAVES AND MASTERS.

_________

CHAPTER I.

THE UNBIDDEN GUEST.

the ball was at its height. The floor shook beneath the crowd of dancers. The music was of the liveliest. Never, in her palmiest days, had the Old Dominion witnessed a gayer festival.

In and out, one bright couple pursuing another, pair succeeding pair like birds in rapid flight, appearing, disappearing, re-appearing, now becoming involved apparently inextricably, and now suddenly and gracefully unwinding, with the wreathing of white arms and the flow of gossamer-like robes, went the gay dancers. And all this time moving with the music, and as it were inspired by it, till the spectacle assumed the aspect of a living personified harmony, for ever rising and falling, flashing and fading, advancing and receding, twisting and untwisting.

Suddenly the music stopped. But before the gentlemen could lead their panting partners to seats, it struck up again livelier than ever. As the first notes of "Zip

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Coon" reeled giddily from his violin, the sable leader of the orchestra stamped his foot, and cried, "gentlemen to the right." Simultaneously, a score shot in the direction indicated, and the whole mass of dancers, as if started by an electric shock, were in laughing, giddy motion. Even the negroes, who had crowded to the back windows to look in, were carried away by the excitement, so that one of them, forgetting time, place, and every thing, shouted aloud, "Dat's 'um, Tony, gib 'em glory."

The music grew livelier and more exhilarating. Every one appeared to have caught the contagion of the overflowing hilarity which Tony, the leader, so unctuously imparted to his violin, and which came pouring intoxicatingly from it. Now the gentlemen were seen darting like a sudden flight of arrows, across the gay cotillion. Now the ladies swept around them like graceful birds at play. Now the four double quadrilles rose and fell, rose and fell, like waves in a narrow tide-way flashing up in silver moonlight. And now, with his fiddle-bow flying over the strings, his jolly shining face perspiring, and his foot keeping time, Tony cried, "promenade all around." Yet, just as the almost exhausted couples were about to stop, though half reluctant, he shouted again stentoriously, "swing corners," and went off into a perfect frenzy of fun, with immortal "Dan Tucker."

"Ki," said the negro, who had before spoken, again transported out of himself, "dat's de way, ole chile. Yer take de victory! Courten'y niggers 'll beat de world." And breaking from the crowd around the window, he dashed into a double-shuffle and swing corners on his own account, with any number of imaginary partners.

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It was the birth-night ball of Isabel Courtenay, an only daughter, and just eighteen. The courtly mansion, in which the festivities were held, was a wide, double house, with a noble hall running through the centre, and had been built by the father of its present occupant, in the first quarter of the nineteenth century, at a cost that tradition declared to have been enormous. The magnificence of its staircase, said to have been copied from an ancient manorial hall in England, was the boast of the county. The furniture of the drawing-room had been purchased in Paris, and was still the most elegant in the neighborhood. The conservatory abounded with rare and costly plants. The library was a model, both for the arrangement of the apartment, and for the taste with which the books had been selected. The pictures in the dining-room, though few in number, were each a masterpiece. And the chambers, alike spacious in size, and beautiful in adornment, were the envy of all the matrons who saw them, and the terror of all the husbands who feared being teased into imitating them.

This lordly dwelling stood in the midst of its hereditary acres, which stretched away, on every side, until the hills bounded the prospect. A noble avenue of trees, nearly a mile long, led up from the road to the house. This avenue had been planted three quarters of a century previously, and long before the existing dwelling was erected, by the great grand-father of the present heir, who had bequeathed a large fortune, which his only child, a son, had greatly increased. This son had, in time, an only heir, who, by a fortunate marriage, still further enlarged the family wealth. The Courtenays had, therefore, during quite a century, held a leading position among the aristocracy of the Old Dominion.

It was not merely their reputation for wealth, however,

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which had given them this prominent rank. Few were as well descended as they, and none more so. A Courtenay had entered England with the Conqueror; two several Courtenays had followed Richard of the Lion Heart to Palestine; Courtenays had fought in the wars of the Roses; and Courtenays, known to be of the same stock, though now but remotely connected, were still found among the nobility of England. The first Courtenay, who had emigrated to Virginia, had been the son of an earl, who, having offended his father, a bitter Hanoverian, by marrying into a Jacobite family, had left his native land and settled beyond the Blue Ridge, among the earliest pioneers of that region. The arms of the Courtenays, quartered with those of the gentry with whom they had intermarried, may yet be seen, carved on tomb-stones, in many an ancient grave-yard of the Old Dominion, though now corroded by time, and frequently half buried in rank weeds.

The present family consisted of Mr. Courtenay, his wife, and three children. Mr. Courtenay was yet in the prime of life. His person was still handsome, though exhibiting tendencies to corpulency. His frank, ruddy face was full of genial humor, and glowing with kindness of heart. And then his massive white hair; for the Courtenays early became grey, and, from father to son, their thick, snowy locks had been a hereditary pride and boast, for more than a century. To complete our picture of Mr. Courtenay, he usually wore a blue coat, with plain gilt buttons; for he said it was in such a coat he had been married, and he could not better show how great a blessing his wife had been, than by commemorating that auspicious day, by wearing a coat of the same color as he wore on that morning. "Blue may be too old-fashioned for young bucks," he would say, "but it is dear to me from

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association, and I almost wish I could die in it." It may be supposed, without fear of a mistake, that such a man was hospitable, liked to see happy faces around him, and was adored equally by his more immediate family and by his dependents.

Mrs. Courtenay had possessed great beauty in her youth, and was still not without traces of it, though ill-health had destroyed her fine complexion, made her cheeks sunken, and given her a perceptible stoop. Her disposition had never been energetic, and sickness had rendered it less so than ever. She took but little pleasure in company, though her husband was so fond of it; yet all who came to Courtenay Hall were sure of a kind welcome. Of the world she knew little. She was, indeed, as simple, in this respect, as a child. Her delight was in the privacy of home, where, surrounded by her children, she was supremely happy.

The eldest, Isabel, had just returned from a northern boarding-school, accomplished and beautiful beyond a rival. The second was a bright, intelligent lad of thirteen, frank, loving, and full of energy, foreshadowing in manhood, a rare combination of all those qualities that win love, and those that command respect. The youngest was a delicate boy just entering his fifth summer, the pet of the entire household, but the idol of his mother.

To celebrate his daughter's birth-day, Mr. Courtenay had thrown open his mansion to all the notabilities within a circuit of twenty miles. For months the ball had been the talk of the county. Not a few young ladies had actually teased their papas into taking them to Baltimore, that they might themselves purchase their new dresses, and have them made up, on the spot, by a fashionable milliner. And such a galaxy of loveliness

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now adorned the spacious rooms, and that loveliness heightened, wherever it was possible, by such aids of art, that even skeptical old bachelors, who never before had confessed to having seen a ball-room what it should be since the reign of Mrs. Madison, acknowledged that, for once, the dream-land of their youth had come back.

In the midst of this brilliant circle Isabel Courtenay moved, the acknowledged queen of the evening. Attired in a robe of simple white, with no ornament in her dark hair but a camilla, her rounded arms bare to the shoulder, and the delicate fabric of her dress hanging, like a cloud-wreath, about her graceful figure, she extorted admiration even from rival belles. Few, indeed, had a person and face to equal hers. Her forehead had the breadth, her eye-brows the majestic sweep of an antique statue. The small mouth and rounded chin were perfection. Unlike most of her sex, with a similar lofty style of beauty, she had a brilliant complexion. To crown all, her eyes were magnificent. The usual expression of her face was sweet and engaging. But if any thing awoke her scorn, her look had a haughty air indescribable. The carriage of her fine person was instinct with her high and heroic soul. No two women, indeed, struck the stranger as more dissimilar than Isabel and her mother. Mrs. Courtenay seemed a Desdemona. The daughter was now a Portia, and now a Queen Catharine.

And yet Isabel, with all this elevation and firmness of character, had a heart that was made for every gentler feeling. To have seen her just before the last set, as she leaned on the arm of her partner, listening to his words, the rich color mantling over her

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cheek, and a soft dewy light melting from those glorious eyes, any one would have thought her as weak as the weakest of her sex. Indeed it was the gossip of the neighborhood that she was already plighted to her companion; and there were many reasons for believing the report. Two elderly spinsters in a corner had been, in fact, canvassing the question.

"What is his name?" said one, in a whisper.

"Mr. Frederick Noble."

"And he followed her from the North?"

"Yes. She knew his sister at school, and once spent a short vacation at his father's, where, they say, he fell madly in love with her."

"It looks like it, don't it? his following her here. Is he rich?"

"Oh! very. At least his father is one of the great Yankee manufacturers, who has more people at work in his mills than can be found on twenty plantations."

"And pays 'em less, I warrant. But he seems a handsome and polite young man enough. Only he hasn't exactly the look I like."

"What is the matter with him?"

"It's a way he has of half shutting his eyes, as if he feared people would look down into his heart. He only does it occasionally, or when others are talking to him. There, that's the look, don't you see it?"

"You're too severe. But, I recollect, you don't like the Yankees; and Mr. Noble suffers for New England in general. It is enough for me that Miss Courtenay loves him. He must be a superior person to have won her affections; for she is very discerning for one so young; and don't she look, to-night, like a princess?"

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"I was never so enthusiastic an admirer of her as you are," replied the less genial old maid. "She is proud, even to being haughty; and too self-willed for a real lady. There's her mother now, what a model she is."

''I prefer Isabel's energy. Besides it is more like the Courtenays. There's Mr. Courtenay himself, mild as he is generally, let any one undertake to impose on him and he becomes like a lion. And his son will resemble him, if I don't mistake Horace's character. Oh! I love to see resolution, and pride, and all-conquering energy in a Courtenay: my mother was one, you know, and my heart warms to the old race."

"Then they really are engaged, Miss Wheaton?" said the other, returning to the subject.

"I don't know positively. At any rate it's not acknowledged."

"But is it denied?"

"Indeed," replied Miss Wheaton, smiling, " I have heard no one rude enough to ask the question."

"Well," answered the other, in no way rebuffed, "it looks like an engagement. See, now they go out into the portico. Really," she continued, a little tartly, "I must say it is rude for the daughter of the house to neglect all her company in this way, and devote herself to one person, even though that one is a lover."

Miss Wheaton was saved the necessity of a reply, by the approach of the host himself, who coming forward at the moment, his face beaming with kindliness, solicited the honor of her hand for the next set, if she was disengaged. Well he knew that she never had a partner, unless he, or some other elderly beau danced with her, for Miss Wheaton was now nearly

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at her grand climacteric; but it was as natural for him to make others happy, as it was for him to seek happiness himself. He had just taken his partner's hand, when his eye fell on her companion, who had previously been concealed from his sight by the crowd.

"Ah! Miss Honeywood, you've come at last," he cried, stopping to shake hands with her. "We heard you were threatened with quite a serious illness, and feared we should lose the pleasure of your company. I'm glad to see you. Are you entirely well?"

Miss Honeywood kindled up with pleasure. The color came to her faded cheek, and she fanned herself nervously.

"Quite well, sir, quite well. It was only a slight cold I caught; you heard altogether too exaggerated an account of it. But is your health good? You're looking very well, allow me to say."

"Never was better in my life," replied Mr. Courtenay hilariously, "that is as a general rule. But, to tell the truth, ladies," and here he dropped his voice, as if he was speaking confidentially, "my head has been in a buzz, these two days, with Mrs. Courtenay's preparations, and those of Isabel, for this ball."

Both ladies laughed, for they knew that their host was at the bottom of all, and had really more to do with the ball than either wife or daughter: but it was his pleasant way of putting such things.

"However," he continued, "a good dance or two will settle down my excited brain. And to assist in my cure, I hope to have the pleasure of Miss Honeywood's hand for the next set, if she will honor me."

Miss Honeywood curtesied graciously; and the music striking up at that moment, Mr. Courtenay had hurried

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off with his partner; and was now among the liveliest on the floor.

In and out, twisting and untwisting, appearing, disappearing, re-appearing, the music becoming gayer and madder at every involution, Mr. Courtenay led the flying dance. His partner was almost ready to drop, yet still he kept up the shifting panorama, for he had not a little of the heartiness of "the old time," and when at the head of a cotillion, took pleasure in tiring out the youngest. Those who at a house of less decided position, would have shrunk from such hilarity as vulgar, gave full vent to their natural joyousness in the Courtenay parlors. Thus, with their famous old host heading them, the three score of dancers flew in and out, laughing, jesting, sometimes almost leaping, wild with the giddy excitement of the exercise.

Isabel was not among them. She had strayed out, as we have seen, into the front portico. At first, her fine figure had been observed, every moment or two, crossing and recrossing the windows. Now and then she paused to gaze in on the dancers, or exchange a gay word with some couple near the casement; and now she had a smile, or a nod for some fair acquaintance some distance within. As the interest of the dance deepened, however, she and her companion had gradually become unnoticed. Every eye was now fixed on the quadrilles. No one thought of the two lovers outside.

This was the opportunity for which Mr. Noble had been waiting ever since he followed Isabel home. Circumstances had always prevented the tete-a-tete for which he longed. Though a guest at the house, Mr. Courtenay's attentions had been so assiduous, that the young man had found it impossible to be alone with Isabel. He determined to seize the present opportunity.

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Isabel's heart beat tumultuously as she listened to his avowal. It had not been unexpected indeed. But no woman, however much she may be prepared for it, hears a declaration without agitation. Isabel trembled all over. And this, though fascinated by her lover's fine person, his high-bred manners, and his apparent nobility of soul; although not unwilling, by a little more perseverance on his part, to have a consent extorted from her.

She looked down, yet did not withdraw the hand he had taken; and the lover, re-assured by this, began anew his protestations.

But at that moment a shriek, sudden, sharp, and heartrending, rose over all the noise of the dancers and music. He stopped abruptly.

"It is my mother's voice," cried Isabel, recognizing it even in that scream of agony, and, breaking away, she rushed towards the drawing room.

All was confusion when she reached it. The quadrille sets had broken up, and were now all in chaos. People were inquiring of each other, by looks and words, what was the matter; others were hurrying out of the apartment, as if to call servants; and others were shaking their heads, with looks of deep concern; while one or two of the female portion of the company were in tears. At the further end of the room a dense group had gathered, and thither Isabel flew, pale as ashes, her eyes wild with terror. The crowd parted solemnly before her, and entering its precincts, she saw her father lying on the floor, his head supported in her mother's lap, his countenance inflamed, and his breathing loud and stertorous.

At first she could not comprehend the meaning of this. Flinging herself on her knees, by the side of her mother, she took her father's insensible hand.

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"What is it?" she cried.

But Mrs. Courtenay answered only by a moan.

"Oh! what is it?" And now she appealed to the spectators. "Will no one tell me? I never saw any thing like it before."

"Your father, I regret to say, has had an attack of apoplexy," replied the formal, elderly gentleman present. "We are about to have him bled. Let us hope it is nothing. Ah! here comes Dr. Worthington."

Isabel rose passively to her feet, that the physician might take her place. It seemed as if she was moving in a dream, as if all around was unsubstantial shadows. In a moment the lancet was out. But no blood flowed.

"It's no use," said Dr. Worthington, despondingly, when all attempts to bleed his patient had failed. "He may live some hours yet, but I fear there is little hope."

At these words, Mrs. Courtenay went into violent hysterics, and was carried to her own room, where her maids, and a few intimate friends attended on her. Isabel, though still stunned and paralyzed as it were, did not give way thus; but following those who carried her beloved father's form, saw that it was properly disposed on the bed, and then remained to watch it. In vain she was urged to leave her painful post. She shook her head, but made no reply in words; yet those who understood her best, knew she was inflexible.

One by one the guests departed, in silence, and many with tears; a few relatives alone remaining to comfort the family, in the great trial which impended over them.

For no one, who saw the patient, or had conversed with the physician, doubted that the hours of Mr. Courtenay were numbered.

One guest had come unbidden to the festival. It was Death.

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CHAPTER II.

THE NEGRO QUARTER.

The morning after the ball was a melancholy one on the plantation. At day-break Mr. Courtenay died, and when the news spread among the servants, the lamentations were loud and prolonged.

The enquiries from the neighbors were early and continued. The answering of all such was assumed by Uncle Peter, the patriarch of the servants, and who had long had the almost entire management of the farm. Having been with his master till the final moment, and weeping, closed the venerated eyes, he now took his place in the portico, no one else being left to execute this melancholy duty; for Charles, the body-servant of the deceased, a young mulatto, had gone to bed exhausted by grief and watching, almost as soon, as Isabel had been led from the corpse.