All which having been arranged, Mr. Halket—­for we cannot now continue to take the liberty of calling him Will—­was forthwith elevated to the position of driving negroes in place of horses, an occupation which he did not much relish, insomuch that he was expected to use the lash, an instrument of which he had been very chary in his treatment of four-legged chattels, and which he could not bring himself to apply with anything but a sham force in reference to the two-legged species.  But this objection he thought to get over by using the sharp crack of his Jehu-voice as a substitute for that of the whip; and in this he persevered, in spite of the jeers of the other drivers, who told him the thing had been tried often, but that the self-conceit of the negro met the stimulant and choked it at the very entrance to the ear; and this he soon found to be true.  So he began to do as others did; and he was the sooner reconciled to the strange life into which he had been precipitated by the happy condition of the slaves themselves, who, when their work was over, and at all holiday hours, dressed themselves in the brightest colours of red and blue and white, danced, sang, ate corn-cakes and bacon, and drank coffee with a zest which would have done a Scotch mechanic, with his liberty to produce a lock-out, much good to see.  True, indeed, the white element of the population was at a discount at Peach Grove.  But in addition to the above source of reconciliation, Halket became day by day more captivated by the beauty of the country, with its undulating surface, its wooded clumps, its magnolias, tulip-trees, camellias, laurels, passion-flowers, and palms, its bright-coloured birds, and all the rest of the beauties for which it is famous all over the world.  But nature might charm as it might—­Mary Brown was three thousand miles away.

Meanwhile the time passed pleasantly, for he was accumulating money; Mary’s letter would be on the way, and the hope of seeing her within the appointed time was dominant over all the fascinations which charmed the senses.  But when the month came in which he ought to have received a letter, no letter came—­not much this to be thought of, though Mr. Dreghorn tried to impress him with the idea that there must be some change of sentiment in the person from whom he expected the much-desired answer.  So Halket wrote again, giving the letter, as before, to his master, who assured him it was sent carefully away; and while it was crossing the Atlantic he was busy in improving his penmanship and arithmetic, under the hope held out to him by his master that he would, if he remained, be raised to a book-keeper’s desk; for the planter had seen early that he had got hold of a long-headed, honest, sagacious “Sawny,” who would be of use to him.  On with still lighter wing the intermediate time sped again, but with no better result in the shape of an answer from her who was still the object of his day fancies and his midnight dreams.  Nor