to generation like a treasure above all
price. When this brief notice is read in Charleston, it may possibly
lead to the collection of these materials, which, with the proper
names of all the persons engaged, should, we think, be laid before the
world as a pleasing record of hereditary nobility of sentiment.

After the lapse of many years, a widow and her three nephews found
themselves in possession of the necessary means for paying the family
debt. Three-quarters of a century had elapsed. The children and the
children's children of the original borrower had passed away; but the
honour of the B. family had been transmitted intact to the fourth
generation, and a search was immediately commenced to discover the
creditors in England. This, however, as may well be supposed, was no
easy task. The members of the S. family had multiplied and separated,
married and intermarried, become poor and wealthy, distinguished and
obscure by turns, changed their topographical as well as their social
position, and disappeared entirely from the spot they had occupied on
their first arrival from America.

But honour is indefatigable, and by degrees a letter reached a person
in Kensington, who happened to possess some knowledge of a lady of the
S. family, married to a solicitor practising with great success and
distinction in London. When the letter came to hand, she at first
doubted whether it might not be a sort of grave hoax, intended to
excite expectation for the pleasure of witnessing its disappointment.
However, the English solicitor, accustomed to the incidents of life,
thought there would at least be no harm in replying to the letter from
Charleston, and discovering in this way the real state of the affair.

Some delay necessarily occurred, especially as the B. family in
America were old world sort of people, accustomed to transact business
slowly and methodically, and with due attention to the minutest
points. But at length a reply came, in which the writer observed, that
if a deed of release were drawn up, signed by all the parties
concerned in England, and transmitted to America, the L.600 should
immediately be forwarded for distribution among the members of the S.
family. Some demur now arose. Some of the persons concerned growing
prudent as the chances of recovering the money appeared to multiply,
thought it would be wrong to send the deed of release before the money
had been received. But the solicitor had not learned, in the