ver the way from the stable, is a house built expressly
for the hounds--a pack of twenty-five or thirty--whose fare would have
made glad the heart of a dozen slaves. Horses and hounds are not the
only consumers of the slave's toil. There was practiced, at the
Lloyd's, a hospitality which would have{86} astonished and charmed any
health-seeking northern divine or merchant, who might have chanced
to share it. Viewed from his own table, and _not_ from the field, the
colonel was a model of generous hospitality. His house was, literally,
a hotel, for weeks during the summer months. At these times, especially,
the air was freighted with the rich fumes of baking, boiling, roasting
and broiling. The odors I shared with the winds; but the meats were
under a more stringent monopoly except that, occasionally, I got a cake
from Mas' Daniel. In Mas' Daniel I had a friend at court, from whom
I learned many things which my eager curiosity was excited to know. I
always knew when company was expected, and who they were, although I was
an outsider, being the property, not of Col. Lloyd, but of a servant of
the wealthy colonel. On these occasions, all that pride, taste and money
could do, to dazzle and charm, was done.

Who could say that the servants of Col. Lloyd were not well clad and
cared for, after witnessing one of his magnificent entertainments? Who
could say that they did not seem to glory in being the slaves of such a
master? Who, but a fanatic, could get up any sympathy for persons
whose every movement was agile, easy and graceful, and who evinced a
consciousness of high superiority? And who would ever venture to suspect
that Col. Lloyd was subject to the troubles of ordinary mortals? Master
and slave seem alike in their glory here? Can it all be seeming?
Alas! it may only be a sham at last! This immense wealth; this gilded
splendor; this profusion of luxury; this exemption from toil; this life
of ease; this sea of plenty; aye, what of it all? Are the pearly gates
of happiness and sweet content flung open to such suitors? _far from
it!_ The poor slave, on his hard, pine plank, but scantily covered with
his thin blanket, sleeps more soundly than the feverish voluptuary who
reclines upon his feather bed and downy pillow. Food, to the indolent
lounger, is poison, not sustenance. Lurking beneath all their
dishes, are invisible spirits of evil, ready to feed the self-deluded
gormandizers{87} which aches, pains, fierce temper, uncontr