great change has taken place in the
relationship between the two men, though in reality much.

The twenty thousand dollars' loan has been long ago dissipated, and the
borrower is once more in need.

It would be useless, idle, for him to seek a second mortgage in the same
quarter; or in any other, since he can show no collateral. His property
has been nearly all hypothecated in the deed to Darke; who perceives his
long-cherished dream on the eve of becoming a reality. At any hour he
may cause foreclosure, turn Colonel Armstrong out of his estate, and
enter upon possession.

Why does he not take advantage of the power, with which the legal code
of the United States, as that existing all over the world, provides him?

There is a reason for his not doing so, wide apart from any motive of
mercy, or humanity. Or of friendship either, though something
erroneously considered akin to it. Love hinders him from pouncing on
the plantation of Archibald Armstrong, and appropriating it!

Not love in his own breast, long ago steeled against such a trifling
affection. There only avarice has a home; cupidity keeping house, and
looking carefully after the expenses.

But there is a spendthrift who has also a shelter in Ephraim Darke's
heart--one who does much to thwart his designs, oft-times defeating
them. As already said, he has a son, by name Richard; better known
throughout the settlement as "Dick"--abbreviations of nomenclature being
almost universal in the South-Western States. An only son--only child
as well--motherless too--she who bore him having been buried long before
the Massachusetts man planted his roof-tree in the soil of Mississippi.
A hopeful scion he, showing no improvement on the paternal stock.
Rather the reverse; for the grasping avarice, supposed to be
characteristic of the Yankee, is not improved by admixture with the
reckless looseness alleged to be habitual in the Southerner.

Both these bad qualities have been developed in Dick Darke, each to its
extreme. Never was New Englander more secretive and crafty; never
Mississippian more loose, or licentious.

Mean in the matter of personal expenditure, he is at the same time of
dissipated and disorderly habits; the associate of the poker-playing,
and cock-fighting, fraternity of the neighbourhood; one of its wildest
spirits, without any of those generous traits oft coupled with such a
character.

As only son, he is heir-presumptive to all the father's