es will be about her, and she will have the
best educational advantages. I refer to the family of Mr. David Gray, of
Cambridge, Massachusetts. He was my father's friend. The years I was a
boy with Russell, Rollins & Co., I was an inmate of his house, and my
adopted son, Frank, is now in his care. His daughter Alice is a most
suitable person to have charge of a young girl. She is like a sister to
me, and to oblige me, would no doubt take Selma.

Please advise me of your wishes; and believe, my dear friend, I will do
all in my power to serve you.

I was sitting down at supper, one evening, about a fortnight after
sending this letter, when a gentleman was announced as wishing to see
me. I rose and went into the parlor. It was Preston, and with him was
Selma, then a beautiful little girl of about eleven years.

Asking Preston to lay aside his outside coat, I was struck by his
altered appearance. It was four years since we had met, but looking at
him, I imagined it might be ten. His eyes were sunken, deep furrows were
about his mouth, and his brown hair was thickly streaked with gray.

'My dear friend,' I exclaimed, as I grasped his hand a second time, 'you
are not well!'

'I am as well as usual, Kirke. Time has not done this!'

Fatigued with the long journey, Selma had retired, and our own little
ones were in bed, when Kate joined us in the parlor.

'You _do_ look ill, Mr. Preston,' she said, seating herself beside him.
'You must stay a while with us, and rest.'

'I would be glad to stay here, madam--anywhere away from home.'

'The care of two plantations, such as yours, must be a burden!'

'It is not that, madam; Joe relieves me entirely from oversight of one
of them. My difficulty is at home--mine is not what yours is.'

Kate's sympathizing words soon drew him out (she has a way of winning
the confidence of people, and is the depositary of more family secrets
than any other woman in the State); and he told us what his home had
become since his union with the governess.

Within two months after the marriage her real character began to display
itself, and she soon developed into a genuine Xantippe. Getting control
of Mulock, who had been made overseer, she had the negroes dreadfully
whipped and overworked; she treated young master Joe so badly that the
lad rebelled, and in his father's absence ran away to his uncle at
Mobile; and locking Selma up in a dark room without food, or beating her
till her back was act