“Well, Toney, no one shall ever know you have told me anything.  Some of these days I will come and see you again.  Good by.”

“God bress you, young massa!  Kill ole nigger some squirrels.  Tell Miss Alice dey is for me, and she will make some on de little ones run down here wid em.  Good by, massa.”

Slowly the young man wended his way to the mansion; but remembering the negro’s request, he shot several squirrels, and gave them as requested.

“Then you have been to see Uncle Toney.  Did he give you any of his stories?  Like all old persons, he loves to talk about his younger days.”

“I was quite interested in his narrative of the trip down the river, when your grandparents and your father emigrated to this part of the country.”

“Did he tell you his Indian ghost story?”

“He did not.  He was quite communicative; but your brother came and arrested his conversation.”  A shade fell upon the features of the beautiful creature as she turned away to send the squirrels to Toney.

“These are beautiful grounds, Miss Ann.”

“Yes, sir; there has been great care bestowed upon them, and they make a fairy-land for my cousin who in fair weather is almost always found here in these walks and shady retreats afforded by these old oaks and pecans.”

“There is something very beautiful, miss, in the attachment of Miss Alice to Uncle Toney.  The devotion to her on his part almost amounts to adoration.”

“My aunt, the mother of Alice, taught her this attachment.  There is a little history connected with it, and indeed, sir, all the family remember his services to our grandfather in a most perilous moment; but you must ask its narration from the old man.  He loves to tell it.  My cousin’s memory of her mother is the cherished of her heart.  Indeed, sir, that is a strong, deep heart.  You may never know it; but should you, you will remember that I told you there was but one Alice.  In all her feelings she is intense; her love is a flame—­her hate a thorn; the fragrance of the one is an incense—­the piercing of the other is deep and agonizing.  Shan’t we go in, sir; I see the damp of the dew is on your boot-toe, and you have been ill.  The absence of the sun is the hour for pestilence to ride the breeze in our climate, and you cannot claim to be fully acclimated.”

The autumn progressed, and the rich harvests were being gathered and garnered.  This season is the longest and the loveliest of the year in this beautiful country.  During the months of September, October, and November, there ordinarily falls very little rain, and the temperature is but slightly different.  The evolutions of nature are slow and beneficent, and it seems to be a period especially disposed so that the husbandman should reap in security the fruits of the year’s labor.  The days lag lazily; the atmosphere is serene, and the cerulean, without a cloud, is deeply blue.  The foliage of the forest-trees, so gorgeous and abundant, gradually loses the intense green of summer, fading and yellowing so slowly as scarcely to be perceptible, and by such attenuated degrees accustoming the eye to the change, that none of the surprise or unpleasantness of sudden change is seen or experienced.