ce. What, then,
could I do? My people needed a mistress; my children a mother. She was
both. Only one course seemed open, and after mature deliberation I
offered her my hand, frankly stating that my heart was with the angel
who, lost to me here, will be mine hereafter. Satisfied with my
friendship and esteem, she has accepted me; and we are to be married on
the 26th inst.; when I most sincerely trust that you, my dear friend,
and your estimable wife, will be present.

That night I took the letter home to my wife. She read it, and laying it
down, sadly said:

'Oh, Edmund! He is, indeed, 'among the rocks!''

* * * * *

Two years went by, and I did not meet Preston, but our business
relations kept us in frequent correspondence, and his letters
occasionally alluded to his domestic affairs.

Very soon after his marriage with the governess, his son went to live
with his uncle, Mr. James Preston, of Mobile, a wealthy bachelor, who
long before had expressed the intention of having the boy succeed to his
business and estate. 'Boss Joe' continued in charge of the turpentine
plantation, and had built him a house, and removed his wife and aged
mother to his new home. On one of my visits to the South I stopped
overnight with him, and was delighted with his model establishment. Two
hundred as cheerful-looking darkies as ever swung a turpentine axe, were
gathered in tents and small shanties around his neat log cabin, and Joe
seemed as happy as if he were governor of a province.

His operations had grown to such magnitude that Preston then ranked
among the largest producers of the North Carolina staple, and his
'account' had become one of the most valuable on our books. Though we
sent 'account currents' and duplicates of each 'account sales' to his
master, our regular 'returns' were made to Joe, and no one of our
correspondents held us to so strict an accountability, or so often
expressed dissatisfaction with the result of his shipments, as he.

'I thinks a heap of you, Mr. Kirke,' he said at the close of one of his
letters about this time; 'but the fact am, thar's no friendship in
trade, and you _did_ sell that lass pile of truck jess one day too
sudden.'

CHAPTER XIV.

Two more years rolled away. Frank was nearly sixteen. He had grown up a
fine, manly lad, and never for one moment had Kate or I regretted the
care we had bestowed on his education and training. He was all we could
have wishe