Mas’r in a place less reputable than it is proper to mention.  Such is our southern society,—­very hospitable in language, chivalrous in memory,—­base in morals!  Some-times the gallant colonel deems it necessary to remain until daylight, lest, in returning by night, the pavement may annoy his understanding.  Of this, however, he felt the world knew but little.  Now and then, merely to keep up the luxury of southern life, the colonel finds it gratifying to his feelings, on returning home at night, to order a bed to be made for him in one of the yard-houses, in such manner as to give the deepest pain to his Franconia.  Coarse and dissolute, indifference follows, cold and cutting; she finds herself a mere instrument of baser purpose in the hands of one she knows only as a ruffian-she loathes!  Thus driven under the burden of trouble, she begins to express her unhappiness, to remonstrate against his associations, to plead with him against his course of life.  He jeers at this, scouts such prudery, proclaims it far beneath the dignity of his standing as a southern gentleman.

The generous woman could have endured his dissipation-she might have tolerated his licentiousness, but his arbitrary and very uncalled-for remarks upon the misfortunes of her family are more than she can bear.  She has tried to respect him-love him she cannot-and yet her sensitive nature recoils at the thought of being attached to one whose feelings and associations are so at variance with her own.  Her impulsive spirit quails under the bitterness of her lot; she sees the dreary waste of trouble before her only to envy the happiness of those days of rural life spent on the old plantation.  That she should become fretful and unhappy is a natural consequence.

We must invite the reader to go with us to M’Carstrow’s residence, an old-fashioned wooden building, three stories high, with large basement windows and doors, on the south side of King Street.  It is a wet, gloomy night, in the month of November,—­the wind, fierce and chilling, has just set in from the north-east; a drenching rain begins to fall, the ships in the harbour ride ill at ease; the sudden gusts of wind, sweeping through the narrow streets of the city, lighted here and there by the sickly light of an old-fashioned lamp, bespread the scene with drear.  At a second-story window, lighted by a taper burning on the sill, sits Franconia, alone, waiting the return of M’Carstrow.  M’Carstrow is enjoying his night orgies!  He cares neither for the pelting storm, the anxiety of his wife, nor the sweets of home.

A gust of wind shakes the house; the windows rattle their stormy music; the cricket answers to the wailings of the gale as it gushes through the crevices; Franconia’s cares are borne to her husband.  Now the wind subsides,—­a slow rap is heard at the hall door, in the basement:  a female servant, expecting her master, hastens to open it.  Her master is not there; the wind has extinguished the flaring light;