pal
character a slave, the story incidentally portrays some features of
slavery.

With these explanations, the author submits the tale to the public,
hoping the reader will derive some portion of the pleasure from its
perusal which he experienced in its preparation.

BOSTON, November 18, 1852.

HATCHIE:

THE GUARDIAN SLAVE.

CHAPTER I.

"_Antony_. You grow presumptuous.
_Ventidius_. I take the privilege of plain love to speak.
_Antony_. Plain love!--Plain arrogance! plain insolence!"

DRYDEN.

On the second floor of a lofty building in ---- street, New Orleans, was
situated the office of Anthony Maxwell, Esq., Attorney and Counsellor at
Law, Commissioner for Georgia, Alabama, and a dozen other states. His
office had not the usual dusty, business-like aspect of such places, but
presented more the appearance of a gentleman's drawing-room; and, but
for the ponderous cases of books bound in law-sheep, and a table covered
with tin boxes and bundles of papers secured with red tape, the visitor
would easily have mistaken it for such. The space on the walls not
occupied by book-cases was hung with rich paintings, whose artistic
beauty and elevated themes betokened a refined taste. The floor of the
room was covered by a magnificent tapestry carpet. The chairs, lounges
and tables, were of the most costly and elegant description. The windows
were hung with graceful and brilliant draperies. Every arrangement of
the office betokened luxury and indolence, rather than the severe toil
and privation to which the aspirant for legal honors must so often
submit. The costly appurtenances of the apartment seemed to indicate
that the young lawyer's path to fame was over a velvet lawn, bedecked
with beautiful flowers, rather than the rough road, steep and crooked,
over which the greatest statesmen and most eminent jurists have trodden.

The occupant of this chamber was stretched at full length upon one of
the luxurious lounges, puffing, with an abstracted air, a fragrant
regalia. He was a young man, not more than five-and-twenty years of age,
and what ladies of taste would have styled decidedly handsome. His face
was pale, with a certain haggard appearance, which indicates the earlier
stages of dissipation. His complexion was of a delicate white, unbrowned
by the southern sun, and the skin was so transparent that the roots of
his black beard were visible beneath its surface. His jet-black hair
hung in