Be assured I shall not rashly peril it."

They parted with kind looks and a timid pressure of the hands. Medwin
firmly resolved, let what would happen, to keep his promise to his
beautiful Creole; and Clara, convinced that, although she had been
bred and educated in the midst of a community where not to fight was
of itself dishonorable, she should be _entirely_ satisfied with what
the world, or even her own mother should say, about his cowardice and
want of honor. Poor girl! she had sadly miscalculated both the effects
of the act she had advised, and the strength of her own resolution.

In a few days Mrs. Harland suddenly announced her determination of
returning to New Orleans, and Clara sadly and tremblingly prepared
herself to take leave of her lover. He came--was told by her of her
mother's resolution to depart, which she was at no loss in tracing to
the advice of Allington--and was made alive and happy again by Charles
assuring her that he himself should start for New Orleans, although by
another route, on the very day she departed.

"Oh, now I know that you do love me, indeed!" said the beautiful girl,
while she pressed her lover's head to her dainty bosom, and, kissing
his forehead, ran out of the room.

CHAPTER II.

"Well, these d----d Yankees _are_ all a pack of cowards, after all,
and I will never defend them again," said a young Creole, as he met
Mr. Allington one morning, at the Merchants' Exchange in New Orleans.
"Not fight, and after being challenged on account of as lovely a woman
as Clara Harland! Why, what the devil did he take the trouble of
following you all the way from New York for, if he didn't mean to
_fight_ you?"

"Oh, nonsense! my dear St. Maur," replied Allington, "you don't
understand the laws of honor, as they are construed at the North.
There, my dear fellow, every thing is regulated by law; and if a
fellow treads on your corns, slanders you behind your back, or steals
your mistress, the only remedy is 'an action for damages,' and,
perhaps, a paragraph in a newspaper."

"But what says she herself to the cowardly fellow's refusal to fight
you? I suppose that now, of course, she will think no more of the
puppy, and return to Allington and first love."

"I know not--for I have not seen her these four days. But if this
beggarly attorney's clerk document is to be believed," continued
Allington, pulling a letter from his pocket, "she herself expressly
commanded him not to fight."

"O