from hedge to hedge; a great rabbit-hawk sat alone in the top
of a lofty pecan-tree; that petted rowdy, the mocking-bird, dropped down
into the path to offer fight to the horse, and, failing in that, flew up
again and drove a crow into ignominious retirement beyond the plain;
from a place of flags and reeds a white crane shot upward, turned, and
then, with the slow and stately beat peculiar to her wing, sped away
until, against the tallest cypress of the distant forest, she became a
tiny white speck on its black, and suddenly disappeared, like one
flake of snow.

The scene was altogether such as to fill any hearty soul with impulses
of genial friendliness and gentle candor; such a scene as will sometimes
prepare a man of the world, upon the least direct incentive, to throw
open the windows of his private thought with a freedom which the
atmosphere of no counting-room or drawing-room tends to induce.

The young merchant--he was young--felt this. Moreover, the matter of
business which had brought him out had responded to his inquiring eye
with a somewhat golden radiance; and your true man of business--he who
has reached that elevated pitch of serene, good-natured reserve which is
of the high art of his calling--is never so generous with his
pennyworths of thought as when newly in possession of some little secret
worth many pounds.

By and by the behavior of the horse indicated the near presence of a
stranger; and the next moment the rider drew rein under an immense
live-oak where there was a bit of paling about some graves, and
raised his hat.

"Good-morning, sir." But for the silent r's, his pronunciation was
exact, yet evidently an acquired one. While he spoke his salutation in
English, he was thinking in French: "Without doubt, this rather
oversized, bareheaded, interrupted-looking convalescent who stands
before me, wondering how I should know in what language to address him,
is Joseph Frowenfeld, of whom Doctor Keene has had so much to say to me.
A good face--unsophisticated, but intelligent, mettlesome and honest. He
will make his mark; it will probably be a white one; I will subscribe to
the adventure.

"You will excuse me, sir?" he asked after a pause, dismounting, and
noticing, as he did so, that Frowenfeld's knees showed recent contact
with the turf; "I have, myself, some interest in two of these graves,
sir, as I suppose--you will pardon my freedom--you have in the
other four."

He approached the old but