a long list of friends. She
possessed, as the reader has doubtless judged from the specimen we have
given, little or no education; but this deficiency, in her eyes, as well
as in most of those who lived on the frontiers, was of minor
consequence--the knowledge of hunting, farming, spinning and weaving,
being considered by far the more necessary qualifications for
discharging the social duties of life.

Of Isaac, with whom the reader is already, acquainted, we shall not now
speak, other than to say, he could barely read and write--rather
preferring that he develop his character in his own peculiar way. But
there is another, and though last, we trust will not prove least in
point of interest to the reader, with whom we shall close, this
episodical history--namely--Ella Barnwell.

The mother of Ella--a half sister to the elder-Younker--died when she
was very young, leaving her to the care of a kind and indulgent father,
who, having no other child, lavished on her his whole affections. At the
demise of his wife, Barnwell was a prosperous, if not wealthy merchant,
in one of the eastern cities of Virginia; and knowing the instability of
wealth, together with his desire to fit his daughter for any station in
society, he spared no expense necessary to educate her in all the
different branches of English usually studied by a female. To this was
added drawing, needle-work, music and dancing; and as Ella proved by no
means a backward scholar in whatever she undertook, she was, at the age
of fifteen, to use a familiar phrase, turned out an accomplished young
lady. But alas! she had been qualified for a station which fate seemed
determined not to let her occupy; for just at this important period of
her life, her father became involved in an unfortunate speculation, that
ended in ruin, dishonor, and his own bodily confinement in prison for
debts he could never discharge. Naturally high spirited and proud, this
misfortune and persecution proved too much for his philosophy--and what
was more, his reason--and in a state of mental derangement, he one night
hung himself to the bars of his prison window--leaving his daughter at
the age we have named, a poor, unprotected, we might almost add
friendless, orphan; for moneyless and friendless are too often
synonymous terms, as poor Ella soon learned to her mortification and
sorrow.

Ella Barnwell, the young, the beautiful, and accomplished heiress,
was a very different personage from poor E